Doctor Is In by Dr. Adil Manzoor OP/ED
Yes, you read that perfectly right.
Israel is one of the leading countries in vaccinations. But the delta variant of the coronavirus came and basically said, “I don’t care about no damn vaccine!” According to the Director-General of the Health Ministry of Israel, Chevy Levy, about 40-50% of the new cases of the coronavirus are among vaccinated people. It’s pretty shocking, to be honest.
But before you hit that panic button, hear me out. What you read is “50% of infected in Israel are vaccinated,” right? Read that again. Now, consider this headline, “50% of vaccinated in Israel are infected.” The only thing I have changed from the initial sentence was the order of vaccinated and infected. Yet, the sentence takes on a wildly different meaning. This is due to a phenomenon known as base rate bias or base rate fallacy.
Now, let me warn you, things are about to get really cloudy. Base rate fallacy states that “if presented with related base rate information and specific information, people tend to ignore the base rate in favor of the individuating information, rather than integrating the two.” Hey, I warned you!
Let me make this a lot clearer. In Israel, about 57% of their population has been vaccinated. Only about 2-4% of children have been vaccinated, though, because vaccinations for kids just only gained approval. So when you remove children from the equation, you have 85% of adults in Israel fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
There are far more vaccinated than unvaccinated people in Israel. Back to our topic statement. The sentence, “50% of infected are vaccinated,” will be perceived by many as “half of vaccinated were infected.”
However, this ignores the base rate. When you do the math, only about 2% of fully vaccinated people were infected. That figure rises to 13% for unvaccinated people. So, in actual sense, there is nothing too abnormal about that statement because the vast majority of adults in Israel are vaccinated.
Well, I said nothing too abnormal, but it is still reasonably abnormal that a variant can still come out on top against our vaccines quite easily. That variant is the Delta variant. It is a more transmissible strain, experts are suggesting it causes slightly more severe conditions, and it may have the ability to easily evade the protection vaccines afford. This is by far the worst variant we have had.
It’s not that our vaccines are ineffective against it, though – far from it. In fact, the Pfizer vaccine is still about 85% efficacious against the variant. But it’s the fact that the variant may evolve to an even deadlier strain that worries me. Imagine we get a variant that can totally resist the action of vaccines? Aren’t we back to where we started?
I don’t want to overthink this. But we need to realize that the war may be far longer than any of us could have imagined. The implication of this is that vaccination does not protect you fully from the virus. Well, it never does, but even more so now that the cases can’t be termed breakthrough anymore.
I remember going against removing the mask mandate so early. This is one of the times where I hate to be right, but we relaxed far too early. The good news is it’s not too late to wake up and set things right again, with mask-wearing and proper social distancing. The bad news – I don’t trust Americans to care enough or at all.
Stay safe. Wear a mask.
This article was written by Dr. Adil Manzoor DO, a Board Certified Internist & Board Eligible Pediatrician, who works as a Hospitalist, and Emergency Room Physician. He is also the current President of Garden State Street Medicine, a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to provide free preventive and acute urgent care services for the homeless. He is also the co-founder of his own unique medical practice Mobile Medicine NJ.
References
· https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.philstar.com/the-freeman/opinion/ 2021/06/29/2108764/vaccine-journalism/amp/
· https://africa.businessinsider.com/news/the-delta-variant-might-pose-the-biggest-threat-yet-to-vaccinated-people/rzzs7pn
· https://www.businessinsider. com/israel-50-of-delta-variant-cases-vaccinated-severe-2021-6?amp
· https://yourlocalepidemiologist. substack.com/p/israel-50-of-infected-are-vaccinated
