Damn that flu bug!

[Jeff Grossman]

You say

If you get the shot, there isn't a 68% chance you won't get sick. There is either a 100% chance or a 0% chance.

and you say

[T]he two people who did not get vaccinated in my office both got sick.

It would appear that the second is non sequitur, per the first.

 

[Cole Kendall]

originally posted by VLM:


A little thing to remember. If you get the shot, there isn't a 68% chance you won't get sick. There is either a 100% chance or a 0% chance. If you do get sick, then the shot may ameliorate symptoms and shorten infection.

Don't be an idiot.

If 100 people get the shot, do 32 end up with the flu?
If 100 people get the shot and are exposed to the flu virus, do 32 end up with the flu?
If 100 people get the shot and wash their hands a lot and avoid their flu-stricken neighbors, do 32 end up with the flu?

Sorry, not trying to be cute, but trying to understand 68% of what.

 

[Cory Cartwright]

I believe VLM is saying that out of 100 people who get the shot, 32 will get the flu. But for an individual there aren't 32 times out of 100 when exposed to the flu that they will catch it, the percentages are either 100 or 0.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
I believe VLM is saying that out of 100 people who get the shot, 32 will get the flu.

If no one gets the shot, how many will get the flu?

 

[SFJoe]

Although frankly the amelioration of symptoms muddies this argument, and blurs the binary nature of the outcomes. It is possible to have an asymptomatic infection, for instance. It's more likely that you will have that outcome if you were vaccinated. I haven't read up on how they count cases or infections or whatever here, but different measurements will give different answers.

 

[SFJoe]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Thread drift back to topic.

Question for the epidemiology types hereabouts: Just spoke to a work-fellow who says he gets the shot every year and every year it makes him sick with the flu. He has no egg allergy. Should he stop taking the shot? What does the CDC recommend for people whose immune systems fail to respond correctly? Is he a child-murderer if he doesn't take it?

So really, the shot can't make him "sick with the flu." The shot doesn't contain flu genetic material, so you can't get a replicating flu virus from it, can't establish an infection, and so on. When he says, "sick with the flu" does he mean he's sick for a week or two with a cough and a temperature above 100*? I'm guessing not. If he is just conflating a rhinoviral infection (lower fever, often shorter duration and severity) or some such, then it is a self-report fail as Nathan says. Does it always start within a day or two of the injection? Or does he get a flu shot every year and often get a winter cold sometime?

What I might be open to is the possibility that your friend reacts more vigorously to the shot than most people, and gets an annoyed immune system for a day or so--sore arm, maybe a low fever. There will be a small minority of the population that might do that. But it would be the first 24 hours, or maybe 36.

We need a case definition for your pal.

 

[Brad Kane]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
I believe VLM is saying that out of 100 people who get the shot, 32 will get the flu.

If no one gets the shot, how many will get the flu?

This one did and it was so much better than a shot and now my antibodies are stronger than ever!

 

[Unknown]

originally posted by Brad Kane:
This one did and it was so much better than a shot and now my antibodies are stronger than ever!

I am 96 points on this.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by SFJoe:
So really, the shot can't make him "sick with the flu." The shot doesn't contain flu genetic material, so you can't get a replicating flu virus from it, can't establish an infection, and so on.

OK.

When he says, "sick with the flu" does he mean he's sick for a week or two with a cough and a temperature above 100*? I'm guessing not. If he is just conflating a rhinoviral infection (lower fever, often shorter duration and severity) or some such, then it is a self-report fail as Nathan says. Does it always start within a day or two of the injection? Or does he get a flu shot every year and often get a winter cold sometime?

I would need to ask him more particulars. The conversation was only:

gibson: Been sick all week and not able to study...
jeff : Flu?
gibson: Yeah
jeff : Not a nice disease. Get the shot. Next time....
gibson: I got the shot last week and it made me sick
jeff : Yikes. Egg allergy?
gibson: no
jeff : It is very rare for the shot to do that.
gibson: get sick every time. not sure why

 

[VLM]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I'm not sure what you mean that 68% comes in when calculating the cost. If it is the case that 68% of people who get the shot don't get the flu, then without any other knowledge of what will put one in one group or another, one's chances of not getting the flu if one gets a shot are 68%. If 68% represents 68% of something else, I don't know what the figure is even doing here.

The argument with regard to one's actual chances being either 0 or 1 I've heard deployed to argue that there's no such thing as probability. I do not take you to be arguing that. I just take you to be obfuscating in favor of a position that doesn't need such obfuscation but doesn't merit such rhetoric.

32% is a population estimate. It is simply not true to say that for an individual, if you do not get vaccinated, that you have a 32% chance of getting the flu.

If you are exposed to the virus, you will either spontaneously clear it, or not. Probability doesn't really enter in to a one off event. Probability only comes with repeated sampling from a population.

However, when making a decision under uncertainty, one ought to use the best estimate from the population to calculate the potential cost of the decision. In this case we have 32% chance of being infected if exposed to influenza.

The probability of being able to spontaneously clear influenza if exposed if you don't get vaccinated is higher than if you do get vaccinated, using 32% as our best estimate of the latter. The difference between that probability times whatever value you place on 2 weeks of PTO for each of these is what's on the line. If that is more than the cost of getting the vaccine, then any rational person should get the vaccine. Only an irrational person wouldn't.

This is the way I understand it.

 

[VLM]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
You say

If you get the shot, there isn't a 68% chance you won't get sick. There is either a 100% chance or a 0% chance.

and you say

[T]he two people who did not get vaccinated in my office both got sick.

It would appear that the second is non sequitur, per the first.

There was a 100% chance for both of them.

Just adding more anecdote to the conversation.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by VLM:

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I'm not sure what you mean that 68% comes in when calculating the cost. If it is the case that 68% of people who get the shot don't get the flu, then without any other knowledge of what will put one in one group or another, one's chances of not getting the flu if one gets a shot are 68%. If 68% represents 68% of something else, I don't know what the figure is even doing here.

The argument with regard to one's actual chances being either 0 or 1 I've heard deployed to argue that there's no such thing as probability. I do not take you to be arguing that. I just take you to be obfuscating in favor of a position that doesn't need such obfuscation but doesn't merit such rhetoric.

32% is a population estimate. It is simply not true to say that for an individual, if you do not get vaccinated, that you have a 32% chance of getting the flu.

However, when making a decision under uncertainty, one ought to use the best estimate from the population to calculate the potential cost of the decision. In this case we have 32% chance of being infected if exposed to influenza.

I take these two claims to contradict each other, unless the operating difference is whether one is exposed or not, and I would have thought that condition would go without saying. Assuming that condition in place, if you have a 32% chance of being infected, you also have a 32% chance of getting the flu (you really aren't going to distinguish between getting infected and getting the flu, are you?).

 

[SFJoe]

(you really aren't going to distinguish between getting infected and getting the flu, are you?).

I don't know about you, but the difference between a week of misery and being up and around seems large to me. Not to speak of rare bad outcomes.

 

[Yule Kim]

I think what VLM is saying is that the 68% effectiveness statistic does not correspond to the likelihood of an INDIVIDUAL getting infected after being vaccinated.

The 68% number means that out of the entire population of people that gets vaccinated, 68% will not get infected with flu. That does not mean that an individual will have only a 68% chance of getting the flu during the flu season. It means that 68% of people who get vaccinated will not get infected, either because the vaccine worked or they luckily evaded exposure to the virus, or both.

The 32% of people in the population who got vaccinated, yet still contracted flu, were not effectively inoculated, presumably because their individual immune systems didn't develop an immunity to the flu despite the vaccination. However, if you give them the vaccination again, it wouldn't give them another 68% chance of being inoculated. Their immune system would still have resisted inoculation. Thus, for that individual, they had a 0% chance of being immunized from flu.

 

[Carl Steefel]

Just to show how far out of it I am, I was still thinking back to the year when they did not have enough vaccine, and they suggested priority be given to oldsters and youngsters. I never really moved beyond that stage. That is, until I was hammered in November, in fact in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner where I was drinking some 2009 LaPierre Morgon and various red Burgundies--had to bail and go to bed with the shakes.

So my question now is: Is there any point in my getting a flu vaccine if I had the flu in November?

Otherwise, on the topic of when adultery became conventional, I suspect that this depends on the country involved. Flaubert had to be the first to point to the conventional bourgeois nature of the entire thing, but then this is the country where the mistress of Mitterand walks the funeral procession together with the wife. It does not seem to be conventional, as presented by Tolstoy in Anna Karenina.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Yule Kim:
I think what VLM is saying is that the 68% effectiveness statistic does not correspond to the likelihood of an INDIVIDUAL getting infected after being vaccinated.

The 68% number means that out of the entire population of people that gets vaccinated, 68% will not get infected with flu. That does not mean that an individual will have only a 68% chance of getting the flu during the flu season. It means that 68% of people who get vaccinated will not get infected, either because the vaccine worked or they luckily evaded exposure to the virus, or both.

The 32% of people in the population who got vaccinated, yet still contracted flu, were not effectively inoculated, presumably because their individual immune systems didn't develop an immunity to the flu despite the vaccination. However, if you give them the vaccination again, it wouldn't give them another 68% chance of being inoculated. Their immune system would still have resisted inoculation. Thus, for that individual, they had a 0% chance of being immunized from flu.

This is what I take it the 68% figure means. VLM claims, however, that for any given individual, the likelihood is either 100% or 0%, which I am claiming is strictly true, but immaterial. Your explanation still leaves that claim true but immaterial. SF Joe's response is also true but immaterial. I am not questioning whether it's good to get the shot. I'm questioning whether his claim, x number of email messages ago about any given individual's chances makes it any less meaningful to say that if you get the flu shot, your chance of avoiding the flu, even if exposed, is 68%.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Carl Steefel:
Just to show how far out of it I am, I was still thinking back to the year when they did not have enough vaccine, and they suggested priority be given to oldsters and youngsters. I never really moved beyond that stage. That is, until I was hammered in November, in fact in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner where I was drinking some 2009 LaPierre Morgon and various red Burgundies--had to bail and go to bed with the shakes.

So my question now is: Is there any point in my getting a flu vaccine if I had the flu in November?

Otherwise, on the topic of when adultery became conventional, I suspect that this depends on the country involved. Flaubert had to be the first to point to the conventional bourgeois nature of the entire thing, but then this is the country where the mistress of Mitterand walks the funeral procession together with the wife. It does not seem to be conventional, as presented by Tolstoy in Anna Karenina.

If by conventional, you mean normal and usual, I doubt that was Flaubert's point. Emma was unusual to the extent that she thought her life could be like the trashy literature she read. And if he did think so he was at least sufficiently wrong for the novel to have been prosecuted for indecency and for his defense to have been that he meant the novel to have been a moral condemnation of Emma (as opposed to a condemnation of her literary delusions, for instance).

 

[Carl Steefel]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

originally posted by Carl Steefel:
Just to show how far out of it I am, I was still thinking back to the year when they did not have enough vaccine, and they suggested priority be given to oldsters and youngsters. I never really moved beyond that stage. That is, until I was hammered in November, in fact in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner where I was drinking some 2009 LaPierre Morgon and various red Burgundies--had to bail and go to bed with the shakes.

So my question now is: Is there any point in my getting a flu vaccine if I had the flu in November?

Otherwise, on the topic of when adultery became conventional, I suspect that this depends on the country involved. Flaubert had to be the first to point to the conventional bourgeois nature of the entire thing, but then this is the country where the mistress of Mitterand walks the funeral procession together with the wife. It does not seem to be conventional, as presented by Tolstoy in Anna Karenina.

If by conventional, you mean normal and usual, I doubt that was Flaubert's point. Emma was unusual to the extent that she thought her life could be like the trashy literature she read. And if he did think so he was at least sufficiently wrong for the novel to have been prosecuted for indecency and for his defense to have been that he meant the novel to have been a moral condemnation of Emma (as opposed to a condemnation of her literary delusions, for instance).

No, not normal and usual, but potentially an activity that could become bourgeois, not the exotic activity it was in earlier literature.

I think this was Nabokov's angle on it as well.

 

[Yule Kim]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

originally posted by Yule Kim:
I think what VLM is saying is that the 68% effectiveness statistic does not correspond to the likelihood of an INDIVIDUAL getting infected after being vaccinated.

The 68% number means that out of the entire population of people that gets vaccinated, 68% will not get infected with flu. That does not mean that an individual will have only a 68% chance of getting the flu during the flu season. It means that 68% of people who get vaccinated will not get infected, either because the vaccine worked or they luckily evaded exposure to the virus, or both.

The 32% of people in the population who got vaccinated, yet still contracted flu, were not effectively inoculated, presumably because their individual immune systems didn't develop an immunity to the flu despite the vaccination. However, if you give them the vaccination again, it wouldn't give them another 68% chance of being inoculated. Their immune system would still have resisted inoculation. Thus, for that individual, they had a 0% chance of being immunized from flu.

This is what I take it the 68% figure means. VLM claims, however, that for any given individual, the likelihood is either 100% or 0%, which I am claiming is strictly true, but immaterial. Your explanation still leaves that claim true but immaterial. SF Joe's response is also true but immaterial. I am not questioning whether it's good to get the shot. I'm questioning whether his claim, x number of email messages ago about any given individual's chances makes it any less meaningful to say that if you get the flu shot, your chance of avoiding the flu, even if exposed, is 68%.

No, I don't think you can. That's like saying you have a 99% chance to pass the bar if you take BarBri just because 99% of BarBri takers pass the bar. If you don't study or if you aren't minimally intelligent, you won't pass regardless of BarBri. Similarly, if your physiology isn't compatible with the vaccine, you won't be inoculated.

 

[Cliff]

Not momentous, but very a propos:

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