scotia wrote:dealtn wrote:Better than anything I could do, by Dr John Campbell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3otWaBrvEc
Excellent summary for the lay person. Its a pity he swallowed the precise 51% figure from the paper's conclusions. I think it would have been preferable for him to have said that the additional protection against death was around 40% to 65% in the over 80s. The spread is almost entirely due to the poor statistical accuracy on the vaccinated deaths number - two standard deviations (95% confidence) is about plus or minus 14 in 51. And this statistical accuracy will only get worse at lower age groups, with significantly lower death rates. So I think its unlikely we will get an accurate estimate of the vaccine's protection against death in the overall community.
And a word of caution on your earlier stated reliance on the paper's conclusions. If you are acting as a referee for a scientific paper it is necessary to work through all of the text - no matter how indigestible it may be, and check if its conclusions are accurate.
Agreed. I wasn't reliant on it, merely pointing out from a language perspective, that part (and appropriate as it is the most important part) was particularly accessible. The remainder, as pointed out, much less so.
Even better when peer reviewed, but given the constraints, and time lines, this will be a long time coming. Much like most scientific papers on the subject currently.