Emily
Editor, Senior Moderator
https://www.livemint.com/opinion/co...america-remains-a-mystery-11663782717702.html
Who is still dying from covid in America remains a mystery
4 min read . Updated: 21 Sep 2022, 11:26 PM ISTFaye Flam, Bloomberg
The pandemic’s not fully over and fatality risks are very confusing
...
Topol has also shared concerns about our lack of information. Not only do we lack detailed information on how many (if any) vaccine shots they’ve had, we also lack data on what treatments they received. “Did they get Paxlovid? Did they get bebtelovimab?" he asked in a daily paper. (Bebtelovimab is a monoclonal antibody treatment.)
Even if vaccines vastly reduce risk, it doesn’t follow that anti-vaxxers are the root of the problem. It’s possible for vaccines to be very protective but still see fully vaccinated people die, simply because younger unvaccinated people face less risk than fully vaccinated seniors. One reason clear data isn’t available is that the US doesn’t collect that information in a uniform way, said Stephen Kissler, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health. “A lot of public health happens at city level or lower so, because of that, it’s really hard to combine data across states to assess who is ending up in the hospital or dying of covid," he said. “The mix is hard to standardize." Another challenge has to do with the complex immunological landscape, he said. It’s not just a matter of how many boosters people have that determines their level of protection, but when they’ve gotten them. Add to that the fact that the most vulnerable people are more likely to get vaccinated.
There’s another deceptive factor that can make it look like everyone is in pretty good shape, said Andrew Noymer, associate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine. The infection fatality rate, a number many were obsessed with finding early in the pandemic, is probably now close to that of flu. But the disease is killing a lot more people than flu because so many people are getting covid. It’s now common for people to get it several times a year, which is far more often than the flu.
Even public health experts who are furious with Biden for his remarks have had to concede they were wrong in claiming that we’d “crush" the pandemic if only enough people followed the rules, stayed locked down or masked up for 100 days. “When this first arrived, we thought this would be a nightmare for six months and it would go away because we’d all have immunity," said Noymer. “That hasn’t panned out."
What Americans need is not to keep hearing the word ‘pandemic’ but to get some clarity about what we should be doing. We don’t all share the same values, but we should at least have the chance to argue over the same data.
Faye Flam is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering science
Who is still dying from covid in America remains a mystery
4 min read . Updated: 21 Sep 2022, 11:26 PM ISTFaye Flam, Bloomberg
The pandemic’s not fully over and fatality risks are very confusing
...
Topol has also shared concerns about our lack of information. Not only do we lack detailed information on how many (if any) vaccine shots they’ve had, we also lack data on what treatments they received. “Did they get Paxlovid? Did they get bebtelovimab?" he asked in a daily paper. (Bebtelovimab is a monoclonal antibody treatment.)
Even if vaccines vastly reduce risk, it doesn’t follow that anti-vaxxers are the root of the problem. It’s possible for vaccines to be very protective but still see fully vaccinated people die, simply because younger unvaccinated people face less risk than fully vaccinated seniors. One reason clear data isn’t available is that the US doesn’t collect that information in a uniform way, said Stephen Kissler, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health. “A lot of public health happens at city level or lower so, because of that, it’s really hard to combine data across states to assess who is ending up in the hospital or dying of covid," he said. “The mix is hard to standardize." Another challenge has to do with the complex immunological landscape, he said. It’s not just a matter of how many boosters people have that determines their level of protection, but when they’ve gotten them. Add to that the fact that the most vulnerable people are more likely to get vaccinated.
There’s another deceptive factor that can make it look like everyone is in pretty good shape, said Andrew Noymer, associate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine. The infection fatality rate, a number many were obsessed with finding early in the pandemic, is probably now close to that of flu. But the disease is killing a lot more people than flu because so many people are getting covid. It’s now common for people to get it several times a year, which is far more often than the flu.
Even public health experts who are furious with Biden for his remarks have had to concede they were wrong in claiming that we’d “crush" the pandemic if only enough people followed the rules, stayed locked down or masked up for 100 days. “When this first arrived, we thought this would be a nightmare for six months and it would go away because we’d all have immunity," said Noymer. “That hasn’t panned out."
What Americans need is not to keep hearing the word ‘pandemic’ but to get some clarity about what we should be doing. We don’t all share the same values, but we should at least have the chance to argue over the same data.
Faye Flam is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering science
