Why do people keep saying the unvaccinated are what’s keeping the pandemic going?

[Keytomyheart]

That would be true if the vaccinated couldn’t catch it and spread it, but they can.

So how are the unvaccinated prolonging this? Because I’m not understanding it.

Btw I am vaxxed, but not decided on booster yet.

@ThettaReddast

“Depending on the estimates used for vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection from the Delta variant, this translates into vaccine effectiveness estimates against symptomatic Omicron infection of between 0% and 20% after two doses, and between 55% and 80% after a booster dose.”

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232698/omicron-largely-evades-immunity-from-past/

Two doses still seem to be protecting against serious illness but, according to this, two doses are much less effective against infection.

Strictly speaking, it's correct that the cases are not very closely related to vaccination. But ICU occupancy is inversely correlated. The unvaxxed are therefore justifying continued restrictions being imposed by the government to safeguard emergency services.

Sadly their actions (or lack of them) have consequences for the rest of us. They're far more likely to go into hospital (apparently our local critical care ward had 11 covid cases in last week, all unvaccinated), they're putting far too much pressure on nhs and preventing treatment/operations for many other conditions. The rest of us are also having to live with more restrictions in our lives.

In my mind I really don't want to restrict people from society, but I'm getting sick and tired of what they're expecting from the rest of us - if we can't control the spread of Omicron with a reasonal way of life, it might get to the stage where the government have to ask them to stay at home to protect themselves and also others from the stress and upset of having constant restrictions over our heads and not knowing if we can look forward to a day trip, holiday, see people at Xmas.

@bearandowl you have a fundamental misunderstanding of maths. There's been lots of explanation here but I'll try as well.

If there are 1000 vaccinated people who have a 1% chance of being hospitalised that is 10 people in hospital.

If there are 200 unvaccinated people who have a 3 percent chance of being hospitalised that is 6 people in hospital.

Technically more people in hospital are vaccinated but the starting population was much bigger in the vaccinated group.

The more people who get the vaccine the smaller the unvaccinated population is so the overall risk of ending up hospitalised reduces as everyone moves from the 3% chance to the 1% chance group.

Technically more people in hospital are vaccinated

Yes, this is the point she’s making in response to people saying that ‘the majority in hospital are unvaccinated.’ Are people deliberately misunderstanding her?

There could be 10 vaccinated people taking a ICU bed and 11 unvaccinated taking up an ICU bed, that way, the majority of the unvaccinated are taking up beds!!

Would love to be told the actual numbers, bet it’s not as vast as you think, but we do need someone to blame, so let’s keep the actual numbers out of the press.

Yes, this is the point she’s making in response to people saying that ‘the majority in hospital are unvaccinated.’ Are people deliberately misunderstanding her?

No. They're pointing out that the unvaccinated are hugely over-represented in hospital admissions.

You do not have to have the largest number to be most over-represented.

And looking at numbers in terms of demographics is important. You want to know who the risk groups are. Not who are the largest proportion of the population (see also studies relating to ethnicity and risk)

@NoNameHere12 ICNARC publish the figures from critical care:

www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/e7be23e7-695f-ec11-9139-00505601089b

“ The percentage of patients admitted to critical care with confirmed COVID-19 that were unvaccinated decreased from 75% in May 2021 to 48% in November 2021 (Figure 27), consistent with the decreasing proportion of the general population who were unvaccinated.
The characteristics of patients critically ill with confirmed COVID-19 by vaccination status are shown in Table 16.”

The reports are published weekly on Fridays.

@bumbleymummy what do you think the hospitalisation number would be if people hadn't taken up vaccines and everyone was at the higher risk of hospitalisation that unvaccinated people are?

It’s nonsensical. A lot of the unvaccinated in hospitals are those already in hospital and too ill to be vaccinated. So if it’s caught in hospital under those circumstances, it’s included in the numbers but not necessarily representative of why they’re there in the first place.

Please. Just stop these threads.

They're the reason that my son isn't allowed out of his house except for physio. Not enough people are vaccinated for him to be slightly safer.

No. They're pointing out that the unvaccinated are hugely over-represented in hospital admissions.

Well then they’re talking about something different to her then. People are saying ‘unvaccinated people are taking up the vast majority of hospitality beds’ not ‘unvaccinated people may take up fewer beds but they’re hugely over represented in hospital admissions’.

[quote bumbleymummy]@NoNameHere12 ICNARC publish the figures from critical care:

www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/e7be23e7-695f-ec11-9139-00505601089b

“ The percentage of patients admitted to critical care with confirmed COVID-19 that were unvaccinated decreased from 75% in May 2021 to 48% in November 2021 (Figure 27), consistent with the decreasing proportion of the general population who were unvaccinated.
The characteristics of patients critically ill with confirmed COVID-19 by vaccination status are shown in Table 16.”

The reports are published weekly on Fridays.[/quote]

I see @bumbleymummy is still wilfully misrepresenting this data. Either your maths skills are embarrassing or you are doing this deliberately. I know which I think it is.

How about this:

"Between 14 July and 2 September 2021, 203 patients with Covid-19 were admitted to intensive care units (ICU) across north east London (NEL). Of these, 90% (181) were not fully vaccinated, with most tending to be on average six years younger than patients admitted to ICU who are fully vaccinated."

https://northeastlondonccg.nhs.uk/news/almost-90-of-patients-admitted-to-intensive-care-units-in-north-east-london-are-not-fully-vaccinated/

Op the reason is because it’s predominantly the unvaccinated who are taking up hospital beds. And it’s those who risk overwhelming the nhs.

In addition, that although yes, vaccinated people are infectious, they do not spread Covid at the same rate as unvaccinated, because the vaccinated clear the virus quicker and carry less viral load. So the unvaccinated are more infectious and for longer.

people are really saying the reason we are not back to normal life and living with the virus, and they are correct because the unvaccinated risk overwhelming the nhs and spread the virus for longer.

@RunningInTheWind

Because the human psyche finds it easier to blame “Debbie from Facebook” than accept how small and insignificant we are against Mother Nature.

A virus doing what a virus does and we can’t even see it with the named eye and certainly can’t control it.

Burn Debbie 🔥!

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻yep!

[quote HalfShrunkMoreToGo]@bumbleymummy what do you think the hospitalisation number would be if people hadn't taken up vaccines and everyone was at the higher risk of hospitalisation that unvaccinated people are?[/quote]
You are assuming that risk is purely based on vaccinated/unvaccinated status here. Age is the biggest risk factor for hospital admission, so are several comorbidities eg diabetes and cardiovascular disease and BMI. There is a reason why the JCVI prioritised those groups for vaccination and we’ve successfully significantly reduced hospitalisations as a result.

If you’re asking what hospitalisations would be like if everyone had the same risk of hospitalisation as an unvaccinated, obese, 65 year old with cardiovascular disease then - they’d be through the roof.

If you’re asking what they’d be like if everyone had the same risk as an unvaccinated healthy 20 year old then I don’t think we’d be worrying about the nhs at all.

Are the unvaccinated ones taking up hospital beds people who have chosen to not have the vaccine though? Or people who have been advised against it due to underlying conditions which are likely to make them ill anyway?
I'm not an anti vaxer, but I've not had the vaccine. I don't feel like I want or need it and the more I watch/ read the news the less I want it. I've had covid twice and was fine both times apart from loss of taste and smell. Since then I've been around it on a few occasions and avoided it so obviously have some level of natural immunity.
I feel like it's my personal choice and I'm not going to panic over something which has essentially been not even as bad as a cold for me on a personal level.
I don't think it's dangerous, or a conspiracy or anything else. I don't care what anyone else does, I just think the worlds gone a bit bonkers over it all.

@TheLovelinessOfBaublyDemons

They're the reason that my son isn't allowed out of his house except for physio. Not enough people are vaccinated for him to be slightly safer.

Actually that's the fault of whoever isn't allowing your son out of his house.

Chequerboard, it’s a direct quote from the article. How can a direct quote be ‘misrepresenting data’ If you have a problem with what ICNARC are reporting then take it up with them. I’m sure they’d love to hear your expert opinion on their data.

[quote bumbleymummy]@NoNameHere12 ICNARC publish the figures from critical care:

www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/e7be23e7-695f-ec11-9139-00505601089b

“ The percentage of patients admitted to critical care with confirmed COVID-19 that were unvaccinated decreased from 75% in May 2021 to 48% in November 2021 (Figure 27), consistent with the decreasing proportion of the general population who were unvaccinated.
The characteristics of patients critically ill with confirmed COVID-19 by vaccination status are shown in Table 16.”

The reports are published weekly on Fridays.[/quote]
I urge people to look at the ICNARC link, because the graphs which follow the quote selected clearly show how very overrepresented the unvaccinated are in critical admissions.

Also the figures on table 16 of that report, which show that the numbers unvaccinated are higher than the numbers who have been vaccinated (whether one or two doses)

Cut off date of info is November. At very top of table - totals

unvaccinated 5065, vax 1shot 377 vax 2shots 3151

Rest of the table then gives vax status of various categories (sex, race, proxy for deprivation, comorbidity, weight etc)

@UnmentionedElephantDildo the graphs show exactly what the quote states - that the percentage of unvaccinated people has fallen from 75% in May to 48% in November. Why do you think they would state something different to what is shown in the charts? The figures you’ve quoted are totals since May so also reflect that yes, in total, there have been more unvaccinated people in ICU. That has fallen as more people have been vaccinated in the population - as stated in the part I quoted.

And of course the stats behind that bit of the report run from May -Nov. In May, we had a partly vaccinated popuiation too. They describe in the methodology how they took the vax stats from then (allowing for age and vulnerability priorities in the roll out) and turned it into a comparable measure.

So the number declined as the number in the population went down. But they remained over-represented, as the numbers immediately following that discussion of methodology show.

@bumbleymummy

Chequerboard, it’s a direct quote from the article. How can a direct quote be ‘misrepresenting data’ If you have a problem with what ICNARC are reporting then take it up with them. I’m sure they’d love to hear your expert opinion on their data.

You know full well.

It's been pointed out already.

It's not that they're keeping it going, it's that they're making it worse and make restrictions more likely the more hospitals get stretched (restrictions they're the first to complain about).