NYTimes publishes "CDC Is Not Publishing Larges Portions of the Data That It Collects on Virus" on 21 Feb 2022

In an interesting piece by Apoorva Mandavilli on February 21, 2022, the NY Times includes the text:

When the Delta variant caused an outbreak in Massachusetts last summer, the fact that three-quarters of those infected were vaccinated led people to mistakenly conclude that the vaccines were powerless against the virus-validating the CDCs cpmcerns.

But that could have been avoided if the agency had educated the public from the start that as more people are vaccinated the percentage of vaccinated people who are infected or hospitalized would rise, public experts say.

Paragraphs 1 and 2 (above) speak to differenc issues, and paragraph 1 does not lead to the inference of paragraph 2.

Paragraph 1 sets up a strawman of "powerless" vaccines. For some people, especially those with weakened immune systems, vaccination would improve their anticipated outcome. The idea that vaccines would be "powerless" or worthless does not flow from an observation of vaccinated, infected people (unless perhaps 100% of vaccinated people became infected).

HOWEVER, one does not see that the "explanation" of paragraph 2 would have "avoided" any incorrect inference from paragraph 1.

If vaccination were in any way effective, one could infer that the percentage (as opposed to absolute numbers) of vaccinated people who became infected would not have risen. In fact, 75% of those newly infected were vaccinated.


In the end, any idea that vaccination provided absolute immunity was "walked back" to a concept that vaccinated people had less severe outcomes because of the vaccination, and vaccination was not a bulletproof vest against covid.


The NYTimes piece, including the questionable statements: