An 11.6% relative risk reduction for surgical masks isn't terribly compelling. There were a lot of covid like symptoms in both arms (surgical mask and no mask) of the trial with only an one (1) percent absolute risk reduction. So surgical masks aren't that great either....unless, I guess you don't know the difference between a rRR and an aRR.
An 11.6% relative risk reduction for surgical masks isn't terribly compelling. There were a lot of covid like symptoms in both arms (surgical mask and no mask) of the trial with only an one (1) percent absolute risk reduction. So surgical masks aren't that great either....unless, I guess you don't know the difference between a rRR and an aRR.
Oh, please an rRR of 1.12 is pretty meaningless even in a RCT since there's obviously confounding with social distancing and possibly other factors. Namely was the group with masks more likely to social distance and take other precautions or not.
As for vaccines, plenty of confounding there as well with NPI's.... Plus read the actual FDA trials, the selection bias is pretty blatant. The trials were under powered for the people most at risk namely those over 75, and with multiple comorbidities. Moderna largely excluded people with more than one comorbidity. There were a total of 8 events between the two mRNA trials for people over 75 with neither trial having more than 4% of their trial in this age group despite 62% of deaths occurring in this cohort. Only 4% of Moderna's trial had more than 1 comorbidity. These trials were also with main white people and before any of the variants emerged. So the 90% numbers were more than a bit contrived.
Also still don't know why Pfizer didn't verify 3410 events as noted on p. 42 of their FDA report (1594 of those events were in the vaccinated arm of that trial). At least, JNJ was a bit more forthcoming, and did a better job of having a more representative demographics...though that's why they also had lower rRR's and for people over 60 with more than 1 comorbidity, the efficacy of their vaccines dropped from 72.9% to 42.3% .
So try reading the actual trials rather than the PR reports. It's really no surprise what's occurring in Israel (UK data as well). Those most at risk, vaccinated or not, are still getting sick and dying despite the disease immunity afforded by the vaccines.
I've already read the study, any way you want to spin it a 8.62% reduction in the control group down to a 7.62% in the masked arm isn't significant. There were similar numbers of covid like symptoms in both groups.- masked arm (N=13,273) and control arm (N=13,893) - that small difference relative to the total size of each arm may be due to a myriad of things.
As for your other links, yeah I've read that site...and what struck me more was that he didn't provide the aRR's which were very very small especially for under 60 age groups. Plus what I've found going through the data myself, is that basically old people unvaccinated people accounted for most of the deaths before vaccines were available, and old vaccinated people accounted for most of the deaths after the vaccines were available.... This was true of the Scottish data as well available for Public Health Scotland. See: https://beyondspin.wordpress.com/2021/09/28/problems-with-data/
From the Scottish data, the real world efficiencies for cases and hospitalizations were more in the 58 to 72% range ...though this includes AZ vaccinations as well.
Thanks for the laugh, but you can't extrapolate data like that...To assume you can do so is just plain silly, and shows you don't have a clue as to the relationship between aRR and rRR's. rRR's are ratios, so the denominators don't change the math that much. To illustrate what I mean, here are three hypothetical trials all with different N's.
Trial 1 (N= 10 & 10 in each arm)
3 cases in 10 = 0.3 = 30%
2 cases in 10 = 0.2 = 20%
rRR = (0.3 - 0.2)/0.3 = 33%
aRR = 10%
Trial 2 (N= 100 & 100)
3 cases in 100 = 0.03 = 3%
2 cases in 100 = 0.02 = 2%
rRR = (0.03- 0.02)/ 0.03 = 33%
aRR = 1%
Trial 3 (N= 1000 & 1000)
3 cases in 1000 = 0.003 = 0.3%
2 cases in 1000 = 0.002 = 0.2%
rRR = (0.003-0.002)/0.003 = 33%
aRR = 0.1%
All three have the same rRR's. All three have very different aRR's. You need to know both numbers to understand the significance of the rRR's. The aRR also gives you the NNT . The NNT for Trial 1 is 10, for Trial 2 is 100 and for Trial 3 it's 1000. So that's a huge difference between Trial 1 and Trial 3.
As for your second point, you're assuming that vaccines are the only determiner of severity of outcome. Whereas the reality is a bit more confounded. First, the variant may be less virulent even if more transmissible. More people getting infect under 50 means more cases with people less susceptible to adverse outcomes, And less deaths over 50, could mean many of the most susceptible people have already died. But still when most old people were unvaccinated, most old people died...just like now where most old people are vaccinated and most old people are still the one's dying. Why? Older people are more susceptible to adverse outcomes if infected.
I understood it, but you still don't seem to understand that rRR's are directly related to aRR's...You have to look at both numbers to understand prevalence. And in the case of Morris's analysis, the aRR's are so small, that the rRR's he presented aren't terribly meaningful especially for the under 50 cohort.
You responded to my comment about relative and absolute risk, and it seems pretty clear that you don't know what these terms mean or how they relate to one another. Your additional comments about risk only reinforce this perception.
So here's another clip from an interview with Paul Offit on Peter Attia's podcast that might clue you in a bit more https://youtu.be/u1wEruG4jys
When you have very very low aRR's and the NNV is very high say 150, 1000 or even 10000 in real young cohorts, then you really need to do a risk to benefit assessment. And yes, there are known short term risks (ADR's most mild but some very serious) and unknown long term risks with these new mRNA vaccines. No prior mRNA vaccine got beyond a Phase 1 trial.
Now Phase 2 and or 3 trial RCT's with viruses exposed to human are by their very nature ethically constrained. If you really wanted to better understand how efficacious vaccines or masks were in RCT's, and you weren't ethically constrained, you'd take different cohorts, including those most susceptible to infection, and purposely expose both arms of the trial to the virus. ...rather than wait for symptomatic events through possible or chance exposure.
So basically you treat humans in Phase 2 and or 3 just like you treat monkeys in Phase 1 trials. You could take 2000 old people over 75 in each arm of the vaccine or mask trial ...and then sit all of them in a crowded room filled with airborne viral aerosols, then really see who gets infected or not.....rather than wait for random exposure and symptomatic "events.
But again, this isn't ethical, so with RCT's we're left with large numbers of people, many who may just get asymptomatic infections (due to healthier or more robust immune systems)...or who may never even be exposed to the virus at all. ...and then have to ferret out conclusions based on very chance derived data with very small aRR's ...initially with such cohorts......and then later with retrospective data where comparing populations or HCW's to the general public gets even less precise and more confounded especially by selection bias.
An 11.6% relative risk reduction for surgical masks isn't terribly compelling. There were a lot of covid like symptoms in both arms (surgical mask and no mask) of the trial with only an one (1) percent absolute risk reduction. So surgical masks aren't that great either....unless, I guess you don't know the difference between a rRR and an aRR.
Doesn't the 11.6% risk reduction with a delta Sars-Cov2 with R0 > 3 mean you are just delaying the infection by a few hours (a day max at best) ?
Oh, please an rRR of 1.12 is pretty meaningless even in a RCT since there's obviously confounding with social distancing and possibly other factors. Namely was the group with masks more likely to social distance and take other precautions or not.
As for vaccines, plenty of confounding there as well with NPI's.... Plus read the actual FDA trials, the selection bias is pretty blatant. The trials were under powered for the people most at risk namely those over 75, and with multiple comorbidities. Moderna largely excluded people with more than one comorbidity. There were a total of 8 events between the two mRNA trials for people over 75 with neither trial having more than 4% of their trial in this age group despite 62% of deaths occurring in this cohort. Only 4% of Moderna's trial had more than 1 comorbidity. These trials were also with main white people and before any of the variants emerged. So the 90% numbers were more than a bit contrived.
Also still don't know why Pfizer didn't verify 3410 events as noted on p. 42 of their FDA report (1594 of those events were in the vaccinated arm of that trial). At least, JNJ was a bit more forthcoming, and did a better job of having a more representative demographics...though that's why they also had lower rRR's and for people over 60 with more than 1 comorbidity, the efficacy of their vaccines dropped from 72.9% to 42.3% .
So try reading the actual trials rather than the PR reports. It's really no surprise what's occurring in Israel (UK data as well). Those most at risk, vaccinated or not, are still getting sick and dying despite the disease immunity afforded by the vaccines.
I've already read the study, any way you want to spin it a 8.62% reduction in the control group down to a 7.62% in the masked arm isn't significant. There were similar numbers of covid like symptoms in both groups.- masked arm (N=13,273) and control arm (N=13,893) - that small difference relative to the total size of each arm may be due to a myriad of things.
As for your other links, yeah I've read that site...and what struck me more was that he didn't provide the aRR's which were very very small especially for under 60 age groups. Plus what I've found going through the data myself, is that basically old people unvaccinated people accounted for most of the deaths before vaccines were available, and old vaccinated people accounted for most of the deaths after the vaccines were available.... This was true of the Scottish data as well available for Public Health Scotland. See: https://beyondspin.wordpress.com/2021/09/28/problems-with-data/
From the Scottish data, the real world efficiencies for cases and hospitalizations were more in the 58 to 72% range ...though this includes AZ vaccinations as well.
#
Thanks for the laugh, but you can't extrapolate data like that...To assume you can do so is just plain silly, and shows you don't have a clue as to the relationship between aRR and rRR's. rRR's are ratios, so the denominators don't change the math that much. To illustrate what I mean, here are three hypothetical trials all with different N's.
Trial 1 (N= 10 & 10 in each arm)
3 cases in 10 = 0.3 = 30%
2 cases in 10 = 0.2 = 20%
rRR = (0.3 - 0.2)/0.3 = 33%
aRR = 10%
Trial 2 (N= 100 & 100)
3 cases in 100 = 0.03 = 3%
2 cases in 100 = 0.02 = 2%
rRR = (0.03- 0.02)/ 0.03 = 33%
aRR = 1%
Trial 3 (N= 1000 & 1000)
3 cases in 1000 = 0.003 = 0.3%
2 cases in 1000 = 0.002 = 0.2%
rRR = (0.003-0.002)/0.003 = 33%
aRR = 0.1%
All three have the same rRR's. All three have very different aRR's. You need to know both numbers to understand the significance of the rRR's. The aRR also gives you the NNT . The NNT for Trial 1 is 10, for Trial 2 is 100 and for Trial 3 it's 1000. So that's a huge difference between Trial 1 and Trial 3.
Read:
Relative risk versus absolute risk: one cannot be interpreted without the other https://academic.oup.com/ndt/article/32/suppl_2/ii13/3056571
As for your second point, you're assuming that vaccines are the only determiner of severity of outcome. Whereas the reality is a bit more confounded. First, the variant may be less virulent even if more transmissible. More people getting infect under 50 means more cases with people less susceptible to adverse outcomes, And less deaths over 50, could mean many of the most susceptible people have already died. But still when most old people were unvaccinated, most old people died...just like now where most old people are vaccinated and most old people are still the one's dying. Why? Older people are more susceptible to adverse outcomes if infected.
oh, now I see you deleted your prior comment.
I understood it, but you still don't seem to understand that rRR's are directly related to aRR's...You have to look at both numbers to understand prevalence. And in the case of Morris's analysis, the aRR's are so small, that the rRR's he presented aren't terribly meaningful especially for the under 50 cohort.
You responded to my comment about relative and absolute risk, and it seems pretty clear that you don't know what these terms mean or how they relate to one another. Your additional comments about risk only reinforce this perception.
So here's another clip from an interview with Paul Offit on Peter Attia's podcast that might clue you in a bit more https://youtu.be/u1wEruG4jys
When you have very very low aRR's and the NNV is very high say 150, 1000 or even 10000 in real young cohorts, then you really need to do a risk to benefit assessment. And yes, there are known short term risks (ADR's most mild but some very serious) and unknown long term risks with these new mRNA vaccines. No prior mRNA vaccine got beyond a Phase 1 trial.
Now Phase 2 and or 3 trial RCT's with viruses exposed to human are by their very nature ethically constrained. If you really wanted to better understand how efficacious vaccines or masks were in RCT's, and you weren't ethically constrained, you'd take different cohorts, including those most susceptible to infection, and purposely expose both arms of the trial to the virus. ...rather than wait for symptomatic events through possible or chance exposure.
So basically you treat humans in Phase 2 and or 3 just like you treat monkeys in Phase 1 trials. You could take 2000 old people over 75 in each arm of the vaccine or mask trial ...and then sit all of them in a crowded room filled with airborne viral aerosols, then really see who gets infected or not.....rather than wait for random exposure and symptomatic "events.
But again, this isn't ethical, so with RCT's we're left with large numbers of people, many who may just get asymptomatic infections (due to healthier or more robust immune systems)...or who may never even be exposed to the virus at all. ...and then have to ferret out conclusions based on very chance derived data with very small aRR's ...initially with such cohorts......and then later with retrospective data where comparing populations or HCW's to the general public gets even less precise and more confounded especially by selection bias.