A recent study showed MRNA vaccine effectiveness of 90% vs. any infection in a primarily younger healthy normal weight white female cohort. I’m guessing that the rate will be somewhat lower in those who are older, heavier people, minority, males, and with comorbidities. Whether the difference will be statistically significant is TBD.
Now... what is a good working percent for asymptomatic and mild infections in the unvaccinated? I don’t know if/how different variants impact that. I’d think they would reduce the percent. But let’s ignore that for now.
So... if we take that rate, apply it to the current total number of infections and multiply by 10%? 8% we get the number of vaccinated people likely to develop mild and asymptomatic infections.
If we then multiply that by the best current estimate, oh, maybe 30%, we get the number of vaccinated people likely to develop long COVID.
This would make another interesting if/then scenario worksheet for seeing how bad the “vaccinated long COVID” numbers look. It might have column for different variants, rows for demographic groups, etc.
At first it would be very hypothetical, but I’d think that, as studies are done, better projections would emerge. And it’s really important to at least guesstimate what they might be for those of us concerned about evaluating risk, especially when the virus is spiking, etc.
A recent study showed MRNA vaccine effectiveness of 90% vs. any infection in a primarily younger healthy normal weight white female cohort. I’m guessing that the rate will be somewhat lower in those who are older, heavier people, minority, males, and with comorbidities. Whether the difference will be statistically significant is TBD.
Now... what is a good working percent for asymptomatic and mild infections in the unvaccinated? I don’t know if/how different variants impact that. I’d think they would reduce the percent. But let’s ignore that for now.
This was one attempt at asymptomatic https://www.pnas.org/content/118/9/e2019716118 There might be better ones.
So... if we take that rate, apply it to the current total number of infections and multiply by 10%? 8% we get the number of vaccinated people likely to develop mild and asymptomatic infections.
If we then multiply that by the best current estimate, oh, maybe 30%, we get the number of vaccinated people likely to develop long COVID.
This would make another interesting if/then scenario worksheet for seeing how bad the “vaccinated long COVID” numbers look. It might have column for different variants, rows for demographic groups, etc.
At first it would be very hypothetical, but I’d think that, as studies are done, better projections would emerge. And it’s really important to at least guesstimate what they might be for those of us concerned about evaluating risk, especially when the virus is spiking, etc.