The media really needs to slow their roll, a lot. Two people having breakthrough infections for any variant is not at all unlikely, and this is absolutely not evidence that Omicron is more likely to lead to breakthrough infections. In fact it would only be actually newsworthy if Omicron _didn’t_ break through.
And the pointless emotional fact that they are doctors, as if any virus considers ones CV. And the excessive use of “probably” in this story.
I get that COVID was a ~bane~ (I meant boon) for the news industry and that people scared shitless are more likely to click but this shit is getting borderline irresponsible.
Reuters is just reporting an event. Nobody goes to the front page of Reuters to see what stories are important. It’s aggregators like… hacker news… that are fanning the flames.
Reuters used to represent a “just the facts” news wire. But now it just isn’t. Yes this is an event in the same way that someone relapsing in cancer is an event. It alone is pointless and does not a trend make.
> Reuters used to represent a "just the facts" news wire.
After reading the article I'm still not seeing the problem. The sentences in the article are factual information, there is no obvious editorial bias like a CNN or Fox article, and there is nothing telling you how to feel (e.g. "You should be afraid" NYT title).
Reuters still seems pretty good compared to what's available out there.
Of course it's news. Governments are massively ramping up booster programmes specifically because of Omicron, and here are two doctors at the very same hospital who had it despite having had three shots. Note these are not "two random doctors separated in time by a large amount", they're two doctors who work together. Conclusion: booster shots do not stop people getting it or getting infected.
People flagging this thread are in denial. This is an event of direct relevance to the justification for government policies affecting billions of people, that's why Reuters considers it newsworthy.
> Conclusion: booster shots do not stop people getting it or getting infected.
...and that's a non-news. We know that, we didn't expect anything else for a long time now since it's also true for other variants. Booster policies were made with that information already taken into account.
A whole lot of people don't realize that. BBC News quoted just a few days ago someone saying that vaccine passports made her feel safe, because she knows everyone is tested, recovered or vaccinated. The fact that she can still get COVID from other vaccinated people hadn't registered and the BBC didn't bother pointing it out.
I'm honestly having trouble deciding if you're trolling or not. Do you really not understand that it's not binary but about the chances? isn't it simply how many out of a some big number of vaccinated got it and how bad did they get it, versus how many out of the same big number of non-vaccinated people got it, and how bad did they get it?
Yes, we all understand that. You have to use Bayesian reasoning here. The prior probability of one person infecting another they've spent little time next to, if the vaccines are "extremely effective" to use the claims we've all heard, is very, very low. That's the whole point of saying the vaccines are effective.
What you're arguing is that this event is merely an extreme fluke that a hungry press managed to dredge out of ... somewhere. That doesn't hold water because Omicron is only days old as a recognized variant at all, and these aren't 'two random people' but rather one clearly and recognizably infecting another in a low density space (e.g. not a conference or other big accumulation of people), despite that they're doctors and thus highly vaccinated.
Now, here's something to chew on. The claims of vaccine efficacy you keep reading are all wrong. They aren't measures of relative likelihoods of getting infected as you might imagine. They are heavily adjusted using a statistical methodology that's known to malfunction in the presence of variants. The raw, unadjusted data is unfortunately hidden almost everywhere, except England, where the public health authorities publish it alongside the adjusted numbers. And the raw numbers show that vaccination makes people more likely to get infected, not less. The rates per 100k are higher in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated.
This has led to the ultimate absurdity of the UK public health agency claiming, "Comparing case rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations should not be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection".
News is a two way street. People want to stay informed about Coronavirus, Reuters is happy to run stories on the topic. They've probably got a few editors focused on the topic, and maybe today was what you might call a "slow news day" in the industry. You can't stand in front of the firehose and complain about being wet though.
I most certainly can when the person operating the firehose does so under the guise of professional standards where they claim to only use their granted powers to inform, not to convince or persuade. Reuters isn’t like CNN or Fox who hide their prime time talking heads behind some technicality of “entertainment vs news”. Reuters claims to be news, full stop. If they live by that sword they better be prepared to be judged by that sword
Journalists should strive for neutrality (good ones try to despite what boulevard tells you, they are on a completely different mission) even if they can never reach it. A case where neutrality fails often is deciding what is newsworthy and what is not.
That said, I don't see that as egregious and of interest because the effectiveness of the vaccine against this mutation is as well. It does not provide answers and the focus on the researchers is questionable, but I don't really see it as a problem or fear mongering.
I disagree that COVID was a bane for the news industry - I think it’s been a great boon to them. People locked down in their apartments with nothing else to do but refresh news sites and Twitter and have their chosen news network tell them how the other side is making it worse, all against the backdrop of an election? This is modern media’s wet dream and they’ve pounced on it.
You’d be shocked to learn how much you consider credible was discovered, discussed or announced under the influence of either alcohol or cocaine.. or both.
Both my parents, sister, and a slew of friends and co-workers have had "breakthrough infections" from covid, I'm not really sure (if you're not getting boosters) whether you even have protection from regular let alone Omicron at this point.
That only means you're in the place with a lot virus flowing around, nothing else. Vaccine stimulate your immune system to lower the chance to get infected, and even if infected much lower chance to get severely damaged.
I’m not sure your explanation is sound. Studies have shown doctors/nurses get sick (pre-Covid) at more or less the same rate as the rest of the population, despite increased exposure to circulating colds and flus. Explanations ranged from “they get vaccinated more” to “background exposure to very low payloads primes the immune system and keeps them healthier.”
I hate to put it in these terms, but do you have credible peer reviewed literature on this claim? What you're saying is exactly what state media & state authorities started espousing after everyone realized the vaccine didn't offer the protection everyone had assumed and been promised. I'm wondering if there is any actual evidence for their claims or if it's just saving face and moving goal posts.
Very few people have been talking about it responsibly throughout the course. It’s become a weird morality issue and anyone taking about it from that position is adding to the problem regardless of moral stance, and the morality isn’t even being done correctly focusing on the actual issues.
I guess it’s just a symptom of the attention economy and the bad state of education and ability for independent thought everywhere.
Disease has always been viewed through a moral lens. Plague was from sin, aids was from sin. We have always judged the sick through a moral lens and only through hindsight do we see how terrible that was. And then we repeat the same mistake.
I am confident that the people giving out so called “Herman Cain Awards” for COVID will be judged as harshly as we judge those who called HIV the gay plague.
It’s possible. My understanding though is that “Hermain Cain Awards” go out to folks who fall into several categories.
They deny the virus exists/ is dangerous.
They don’t take precautions, like masks or get vaccinated.
The advocate against folks who get vaccinated calling them “sheep” or other names.
On one hand, many of these folks have fallen victim to disinformation and one political party in America that’s trying to actively hurt them for some sort of gain. So yea maybe it’s not their fault. On the other hand, my friend got accosted trying to get his kiddo vaxxed by one of these folks. Not cool.
> I am confident that the people giving out so called “Herman Cain Awards” for COVID will be judged as harshly as we judge those who called HIV the gay plague.
I’m not so sure. If there were a safe, free and widely available vaccine for HIV and gay men were going out of their way to shout about not taking it then I think the situation may have been comparable.
As a counterpoint I wonder how many thousands of lives we could have/would have saved if we reported on delta with the same type of urgency. We don't have the facts yet, and every story I've seen underscores that point. But to just say "we don't know so let's ignore it entirely until we do" seems to minimize the deadliness of the past mutations we've seen.
It is just as irresponsible to say “we don’t have all the facts… but it could render vaccines useless and reinfect everyone and spread like measles and kill like small pox”.
Ignoring it is irresponsible. Panicking is irresponsible. This isn’t a difficult or new concept! Each year the flu is a new “variant” and every single year it has the _potential_ to be 1918 all over again. But we don’t close borders and force quarantine until we have proof it isn’t 1918 bad. We study it, we prepare vaccines and we take reasonable precautions
I think our top doctor here in bc said it wonderfully. We must anticipate and plan for the worst even as we hope for the best.
It isn't asking for much after what we've been through to go a month with more caution. If we had a 1918 flu, and then another strain worse than that within 2 years, of course we might take some precautions when we find a 3rd strain overtaking the 2nd strain.
And the pointless emotional fact that they are doctors, as if any virus considers ones CV. And the excessive use of “probably” in this story.
I get that COVID was a ~bane~ (I meant boon) for the news industry and that people scared shitless are more likely to click but this shit is getting borderline irresponsible.