The Claim:
A computer engineer has released a video claiming that the more vaccinated against COVID a person is, the more likely they are to be sickened by COVID.
The Facts:
A computer engineer should not fall victim to a Table 2 Fallacy, but here we have such a situation.
Often, epidemiologists need to pool together data to come up with an estimate of risk–known as an adjusted effect estimate. A Table 2 Fallacy results from multiple adjusted effect estimates from a single model presented in a single table. Problems arise when different types of estimates are presented on the same table.
In this case a table presents the results of multiple doses of a vaccine. It’s important to adjust for prior vaccination doses, but we can’t then use that same adjustment to draw conclusions about the efficacy of those prior doses.
The actual results of the study conclude that “the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine booster was 30% effective in preventing infection, during the time when the virus strains dominant in the community were represented in the vaccine.” This conclusion is supported by another analysis showing that bivalent boosters had an effectiveness of 59% against hospitalization and 62% against hospitalization or death.
Disclaimer: Science is always evolving and our understanding of these topics may have evolved too since this was originally posted. Be sure to check out our most recent posts and browse the latest Just the Facts Topics for the latest.
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