While the News1130 article is poorly written, I suppose the blame should really go back to the BC provincial Ministry of Health because that poorly written / poorly presented data is what the ministry has provided:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021HLTH0239-002446
Quote:
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From Dec. 15-21, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 24.8% of cases and from Dec. 8-21 they accounted for 68.6% of hospitalizations.
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Also worth noting are the following stats:
Quote:
Past week cases (Dec. 15-21) - Total 6,879
- Not vaccinated: 1,620 (23.5%)
- Partially vaccinated: 86 (1.3%)
-Fully vaccinated: 5,173 (75.2%)
Past two weeks cases hospitalized (Dec. 8-21) - Total 175
- Not vaccinated: 116 (66.3%)
- Partially vaccinated: 4 (2.3%)
- Fully vaccinated: 55 (31.4%)
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IMO, the large percentage of fully vaccinated people testing positive for COVID is a combination of:
- Omicron punching through the protection afforded by the vaccine
- Omicron's high rate of transmissibility
- the sheer number of fully vaccinated people in BC (~90%) compared to the unvaccinated
- the large number of people getting tested
But the really important bit, in no uncertain terms, is this:
Quote:
Past week, cases per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Dec. 15-21)
- Not vaccinated: 238.2
- Partially vaccinated: 41.8
- Fully vaccinated: 113.5
Past two weeks, cases hospitalized per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Dec. 8-21)
- Not vaccinated: 27
- Partially vaccinated: 3.1
- Fully vaccinated: 1.2
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An unvaccinated person has a 0.238% chance of getting infected by COVID, while a fully vaccinated person has a 0.1135% chance to get infected. Roughly speaking, that means an unvaccinated person is more than 2x as likely to be infected by COVID.
Furthermore, an unvaccinated person has a 0.0270% chance of becoming hospitalized due to COVID, while a fully vaccinated person has a 0.0012% chance to do the same. This means an unvaccinated person is 22.5x more likely to be hospitalized by COVID compared to a fully vaccinated person.
You are free to interpret those statistics however you see fit. You can say having a 0.238% chance of getting COVID is very low, and I can't say you're wrong. You can say having a 0.0270% chance of getting hospitalized because of COVID is an extremely small chance, and I also can't say you are wrong. At the same time, the numbers are also quite plainly spelling out that an unvaccinated person has almost a 23x higher chance of being hospitalized by COVID compared to a fully vaccinated person.