AzDHS Releases Data on COVID-19 by Vaccination Status and...Wow

 

Unless you're an anti-vax moron, you already accept that vaccines are safe and effective. You also know that a booster is important to strengthening your immunity, and that this immunity is likely to be enduring.

That all describes me, but even I didn't know how dramatic the effects of boosters really are. I found out last week, when AzDHS released an analysis of the effects of vaccinations on COVID-19 rates and outcomes.

The bottom line (well actually top line) result is that, compared to people who are fully vaxxed and boosted, unvaccinated people have 11 times the risk of testing positive, 67 times the risk of being hospitalized, and 180 times the risk of dying. 

Breaking out groups who are unvaccinated, fully vaccinated, and fully vaccinated plus booster, and looking at the Omicron period, there are few differences between the first two groups in case rates, and only a very small rate for the third. There are big differences between the first two on hospitalizations and deaths, and rates are close to zero for the third.

The following chart from the report sums it up. Red is unvaccinated, grey is fully vaccinated, blue is fully vaccinated and boosted:

You can't get much more dramatic and convincing evidence than that, folks. As you will see if you look at the report, most of the blue can be attributed to cases in people 65 and older. For people younger than 65 the chances of all three outcomes are basically zero.

Popular posts from this blog

Looks Like Immune Responses are Enduring After All

Image
 For some time, public health officials have fretted about whether immunity to COVID-19, acquired via infection or vaccination would stick.  Studies showed rapid declines in antibodies during recovery from infection and thereafter . It turns out that this concern was overblown. A study just released says bone marrow plasma cells are a persistent source of protective antibodies, and that "circulating resting memory B cells directed against the S protein were detected in the convalescent individuals."   Another study , yet to be reviewed, suggests that vaccines boost this effect. In fact, some are suggesting this situation this could actually mean  lifetime immunity .   Whether the same thing happens with vaccination is not clear. Most estimates suggest that vaccine immunity will last about a year . More pessimistic estimates putting the protection period at six months .  The possible shorter time frame, plus the appearance of the new variants, have the vaccine makers working
Read more

Another One Bites the Dust

Image
Hi all. Stepping out of retirement for a moment to say that the day has finally arrived. After four years of successfully avoiding COVID-19 infection I had a positive test yesterday. Symptoms are very mild—I've had worse colds. The provider at urgent care said almost all the cases they are seeing are the same. Mild symptoms may also be due to the fact that I had the original vaccine then the two boosters. All this time I thought I might be a NOVID —one of those people who never get the bug. But no, it must have been my assiduous mask wearing and avoidance of high-risk situations when things were bad. So here's double middle fingers to all the kooks who think masks don't work (I've not been wearing masks for months now). I don't know what variant I have but it's likely JN.1. It is said to be extraordinarily contagious and accounts for 60% of cases worldwide . It also tends to produce mild infections like the one I have.  This article claims that right now every
Read more

AZ Pandemic Numbers Summary for the Seven Days Ending November 9: Everything is Going South

Image
Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending yesterday: Well this isn't good. The lull seems to be over. Virtually every number is up, both over a week and over four weeks. The most worrisome is hospital beds, which have been steadily trending up over the last several weeks.  Wastewater signals are all up except Tempe (dashboard is up again) which after going up last week (from 41 to 100) decreased by about 10%. The increases are worrisome because the latest data from ASU's Lim Lab (last updated October 31), where they sequence PCR samples to identify variants, shows that only about 46% of sequences showed BA.5. That is one of the Omicron variants the new bivalent vaccine was designed to protect against.  All the rest of the samples are BA.2.75 (7.7%), which I flagged several weeks ago, and BQ,1.1 (15.4%), and BQ.1 (30.8%), both of which I blogged about a couple weeks ago.  Those, new research confirms , are much more lik
Read more