Pasayten's Methow Valley Bulletin Board

What a ridiculously biased article, Ray. What’s the quote, ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’? I’m going to have to just believe my lying eyes I guess!

The Washington Post
How badly unvaccinated Republicans are misinformed, in one stat
Aaron Blake 19 hrs ago

For months now, it has been evident that the problem with coronavirus vaccine hesitancy is twofold: Not only do the unvaccinated question the safety of the vaccines, but about as importantly, they often doubt the vaccines’ effectiveness in very inaccurate ways. It’s one thing to be convinced to take a vaccine if you worry about side effects; it’s quite another if you also don’t think there’s any benefit.

Now a new poll from Gallup lays bare just how badly misinformed the unvaccinated are on that latter count. And that misinformation overwhelmingly lies on one side: the GOP.

Gallup asked people two questions: First, “what percentage of unvaccinated people have been hospitalized due to the coronavirus?” And second, “what percentage of fully vaccinated people have been hospitalized due to the coronavirus?”

Americans as a whole are actually reasonably well-informed about this. The median American — that is, the person exactly at the midpoint of all views — estimates the vaccines’ efficacy in preventing hospitalization is 80 percent (e.g. they say 20 percent of unvaccinated people require hospital care vs. 2 percent of vaccinated people). A study released this month showed the number is actually about 86 percent.

Gallup’s number derives from some wildly varying estimates of the hospitalization rates for vaccinated and unvaccinated people. For example, Democrats tend to oversell the danger to unvaccinated people, with a plurality wrongly believing at least half require hospital care. (This is why Gallup uses medians rather than averages.) But on balance, when you look at the relative numbers, the median American gets the benefit of vaccines about right.

But then we get to the subgroups. And that’s where we get a sense for just how warped the perceptions of the vaccines are, particularly among unvaccinated Republicans.

Among Democrats, the median view of the vaccines’ efficacy is about right for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. The median vaccinated Democrat says the vaccines are about 88 percent effective at reducing hospitalizations, while the median unvaccinated Democrats pegs the number at 80 percent. The median vaccinated Republican is less sold on the efficacy of the vaccines even than the median unvaccinated Democrat, estimating a 73 percent reduction in hospitalization from the vaccines they’ve taken. But again, that’s in the ballpark.

Which brings us to unvaccinated Republicans. The median unvaccinated Republican believes that the percentage of unvaccinated people like themselves requiring hospitalization is 5 percent. How does that compare to how they believe the vaccinated fare? It’s exactly the same. They believe the hospitalization rate for vaccinated people is also 5 percent. So the median unvaccinated Republican essentially says the vaccines have net-zero efficacy — i.e. there is no benefit to getting vaccinated when it comes to landing in the hospital.

Unvaccinated Republicans views on vaccine efficacy.© Aaron Blake/Gallup Unvaccinated Republicans views on vaccine efficacy.
This, it bears reemphasizing, is not even close to accurate. A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that unvaccinated people in Los Angeles County were 29.2 times more likely to require hospitalization. This was because they were about five times more likely to get infected, and then, once infected, significantly more likely to wind up in the hospital.

If anything, the most telling gap in this poll is between unvaccinated Democrats and unvaccinated Republicans. Both haven’t seen fit to get the shot; one group, though, is significantly more likely to correctively perceive a benefit if they do, while the other sees little-to-no benefit.

The dilemma from there is figuring out how that happens and what can be done about it. How is a class of people so badly misinformed about the efficacy of vaccines? Gallup surmises that it’s about the news they are consuming.

“Given previous studies on the effects of the media and information during COVID, one possible reason is that Democrats are more consistently exposed to information that favorably portrays vaccine efficacy,” Jonathan Rothwell and Dan Witters write.

Another way to say that would be that they are more consistently exposed to information that actually portrays vaccine efficacy accurately. Unvaccinated Republicans are getting their information from right-wing media and social media that dwells significantly more upon — and often hyperbolizes and misconstrues — the supposed negative aspects of the vaccines.

But while it’s been established how much that media and social media ecosystem oversells the side effects of the vaccines, less well established is how much it’s also feeding false perceptions of how well the vaccines work, even apart from those side effects. That might be as much because it ignores studies like the one in Los Angeles County as that it spins them in a negative light. It’s also possible that people who have decided not to get vaccinated are expressing doubt about vaccine efficacy to justify that decision.

But the effect is the same. And it makes persuasion of the remaining unvaccinated — and especially unvaccinated Republicans — doubly difficult.

Of course, they might have gotten better all on their own without any help. Or they might have gotten better with sugar pills as well. The Placebo Effect is real and you need to take it into account.

It is possible that all the people I know personally who have used it would have done well with nothing (further reason for no mandate) but seriously what’s the harm in a perfectly safe option that’s cheap too?

Oh, yes, the other drug with no evidence of efficacy against covid-19.

Wow, got me good! Ok, sorry it was 40 years and millions of people. I mixed it up with hydroxy. Sue me.

dorankj wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:38 am Why did “livestock paste” receive the Nobel prize in 2015? It’s been used on millions of people for nearly 70 years!

Interesting how that could happen when it was discovered in 1975 and came into medical use in 1981.

dorankj wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:11 am As was stated elsewhere, I’m going to trust the actual ER Dr who is a friend and is treating these patients over some bulletin board jerk.

like I said above, it has does appear that Ivermectin has been tested and approved for use in humans for river blindness.

At the very least, it will clean out the parasites.

Do what you feel is best for you, its your body.

I really like that concept of bodily autonomy. Wish that concept was around when the draft lottery gave me a high chance of being drafted during the Vietnam War. Luckily that war ended for us right before my body would have been called up by the government and used as cannon fodder.

One of the reasons I don't trust the Feds. Too much killing in the name of peace, other peoples freedom, and OUR Democratic principles. President Eisenhower was correct to warn us about the dangers of the military-industrial complex. Make hospital beds, not bombs.

As was stated elsewhere, I’m going to trust the actual ER Dr who is a friend and is treating these patients over some bulletin board jerk.

mister_coffee wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:32 am

dorankj wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:22 am ... So the only questionable part is why gov agencies are throwing so much shade on it?

Fine, take your livestock paste and call other people "sheeple". Oh, the irony.

Not directing to anyone or any group but saw this cartoon on the net and thought it was funny. Each side calls each other sheep. I read Ivermectin is approved for use by humans for river blindness.

"a tropical skin disease caused by a parasitic filarial worm, transmitted by the bite of blackflies"

I’m assuming you know there is a actual Dr prescription for ivermectin. You don’t have to get it from a ‘paste’ unless politics!

Why did “livestock paste” receive the Nobel prize in 2015? It’s been used on millions of people for nearly 70 years!

dorankj wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:22 am ... So the only questionable part is why gov agencies are throwing so much shade on it?

Maybe because there are no peer-reviewed studies showing efficacy?

In fact, the only study (the Egyptian one) that showed any kind of efficacy at all had to be retracted due to issues with plagiarism and data falsification.

Fine, take your livestock paste and call other people "sheeple". Oh, the irony.

What’s the conspiracy part? EUA states right up front that no reasonable therapeutic can be available otherwise why the emergency use? Ivermectin has no financial benefit to big pharma and is doing very good when used early (verified by research and actual ER Dr.s I know are using it) So the only questionable part is why gov agencies are throwing so much shade on it?

dorankj wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 7:50 pm Well mister coffee, not much of a critical thinker eh? If a low cost off patent therapeutic is well know not only is EUA not allowed but the billions big pharma is making won’t happen. I thought we were all pretty critical of them before, when did that change?

I think conspiracy theories have to make more sense than that to even qualify as a theory.

Merck is also a big pharma company -- $48 billion in revenue in 2020 surely qualifies as big. So how much are Pfizer and Moderna paying off Merck so they can sell vaccines at $20 per dose?

Corporations can do both good things and bad things. They deserve criticism for the bad things they do, and accolades and often my hard-earned dollars for the good things they do. Making just one policy and not evaluating things based on the facts is definitely more work but not doing so is a guaranteed way to divorce oneself from reality.

Well mister coffee, not much of a critical thinker eh? If a low cost off patent therapeutic is well know not only is EUA not allowed but the billions big pharma is making won’t happen. I thought we were all pretty critical of them before, when did that change?

Picture tells all. The Polio Pioneers, they were called. A long line of 6 yr. olds getting vaccinated against polio. Brave little ones.
We are told to be unafraid by the unvaccinated, but what are they afraid of?

dorankj wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 11:30 am Tell me, Mr. ‘man of science’ if you are successful in forcing everyone at gunpoint (all government is only force in the end!) who will be your control group? How will we ever know the science? Maybe use your vast skills and knowledge to review how Africa is doing: lots of transmission, very little vax and really not all that much death relatively (certainly not your predictions of human extinction!) Could it maybe be the widely used (in third world medicine) Ivermectin (it did receive the Nobel peace prize in 2015)?

It is pretty common in clinical trials of a new treatment to end the trial and give the treatment to the control group if the results are very positive. I'd say in the case of the mRNA vaccines which showed 95% efficacy that was a reasonable thing to do. It is also remarkable and rare to have any new medication have very high efficacy, as usually there is a long trial-and-error process where they figure out optimum dosages over time -- there are a lot of dials on that machine and figuring out the best settings for all of them take some time.

The developers of Ivermectin received a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, but not a Nobel Peace Prize. And they received that prize for the value of Ivermectin as an anti-parasitic drug, not an anti-viral drug. There is way to reason from a blank sheet of paper that high efficacy as an anti-parasitic would indicate any efficacy as an anti-viral. I also would note that Merck, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures Ivermectin, does not recommend its use for treating covid-19. I suspect that if they had any reason to believe it had any efficacy at all we would be faced with a deluge of TV ads telling you to ask your doctor about Ivermectin.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56526632

"However, South Africa's medical regulator, the drug's manufacturer and some of the country's most eminent scientists have all warned against using it to treat coronavirus."

"One theory for why it might appear to be effective in patients with coronavirus is that it could actually be treating any parasites they are carrying and so make them stronger, without actually tackling the virus which causes Covid-19.

But in any case, South Africa's medicines regulator warned that: "There is insufficient evidence for or against the use of Ivermectin in the prevention or treatment of Covid-19."

As far as an app turning on location without a user knowing, there is a setting (application manager) where the user can set " permissions" for what that app is allowed to access on your phone.

Tell me, Mr. ‘man of science’ if you are successful in forcing everyone at gunpoint (all government is only force in the end!) who will be your control group? How will we ever know the science? Maybe use your vast skills and knowledge to review how Africa is doing: lots of transmission, very little vax and really not all that much death relatively (certainly not your predictions of human extinction!) Could it maybe be the widely used (in third world medicine) Ivermectin (it did receive the Nobel peace prize in 2015)?

alfrandell wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:53 pm it is funny, because everyone is already chipped.
try to do any modern stuff without your cell phone on you, and the location becon turned on!

Off topic, but very easy to turn location services off... also improves battery life significantly...

You can also just turn your cell phone off when not needed for use.

Quote from that news link,

"one King County resident dies from COVID-19 every eight hours, according to county data"