This article is all jacked up. And people wonder why the are faith issues in the fake news.
About 6,000 of them had been fully vaccinated with the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines three to six months
before they wound up in a hospitals. The other 1,000 were unvaccinated but had been infected with
COVID-19 three to six months earlier.
About 5% of the vaccinated patients tested positive for the coronavirus vs. about 9% of the unvaccinated
group. The researchers factored in other data points, including age and how much virus was circulating
in different areas, to calculate that the unvaccinated group was at even higher risk.
Wait!
So, of 7,000 people, they had 6,000 vaccinated, and only 1,000 unvaccinated?
5% tested positive in the larger group, or .05 * 6,000 = 300 people.
9% tested positive in the smaller group, or .09 * 1,000 = 90 people.
If they really thought they had a firm grasp on the facts, they would have had two roughly equal size groups. If you ignore all but 1,000 in the first group while keeping the same 5% distribution, you get .05 * 1,000 = 50 people. That's more than half the other number. They are basically telling us you are almost TWICE AS LIKELY to be hospitalized from COVID if you (A) never got vaccinated, and (B) have tested positive for COVID in the last 3-6 months.
HOWEVER...
Another way to look at this is, 300 hospitalized and vaccinated adults, tested positive for COVID, but only 90 who had natural antibodies tested positive after being hospitalized. That could be interpreted to mean that 300 out of 390 people who needed hospitalization for COVID were vaccinated -- compared to 90 out of 390 who required hospitalizations for COVID without the vaccine but with natural immunity. That's 76% vaxxed vs. 24% unvaxxed.
They SPLIT the sample size of 7,000 and did their stats in vaxxed vs unvaxxed groups instead of using the sample size itself.
7,000 studied.
300 hospitalized w/COVID and after being vaccinated.
90 hospitalized w/COVID, not vaccinated but had tested positive for COVID 3-6 months earlier.
But, hey! I'm just a computer science professional who studied statistics in undergrad and grad schools.