Albuquerque Journal - 19% of new cases are vaccinated

[RockRaven]

22. You understand that I included that line as a comparison, not because it has anything directly

to do with the article, right? The factoids in the article lack context to make them useful for understanding what is happening or what one ought to do.

19% of the hospitalized patients had some vaccine... Okay... Is that good or bad? Is that high or low? Is that reassuring or scary? One can know by looking at relative rates or their proxies.

If only 1% of the population had gotten any vaccine then 19% would be terrible. If 99% of the population had been fully vaccinated it would be insanely awesome.

So a useful first glance comparison is: what should we see if there's no effect from the vaccine? Well, the hospital population ought to be similar to the general population in that case, i.e. 60% fully vaxxed. And it is not. That was the point of that line.

Okay, it is different from the general population, and what does that mean? It means relative to unvaxxed people, vaxxed people stay out of the hospital. By a lot. The 3/5 of the population who are fully vaxxed make up 1/8 of the hospitalizations, whereas the 2/5 who are not make up 7/8. The vaccines have room for improvement but they're working well.

Which is a hugely different take away than the clickbait headline of an absolute measurement of vaccinated individuals amongst the hospitalized population presented without appropriate context.