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It appears
that very few people understand percentages.
Some days it seems like nobody does, which
is a bit ironic. I'll explain.
The big news out of the White House this
morning seems to be that a few staff members
have gotten Covid. Vaccinated staff members.
Now the White House is scrambling to figure
out how to deal with it after first
pretending it didn't happen and now trying
to tell people it did happen but it doesn't
matter--you know, how your four-year old
deals with getting caught doing something
he's not supposed to. This is straight out
of the handbook for the behavior of Children
and Politicians.
But luckily for us, The Media is there to
make sure we all think this is a very huge
deal, and are justly terrified about it.
Because that means all of that freedom that
the administration told us was ours if we
only got vaccinated WAS ALL A BIG LIE!
ohgodwe'reallgonnadie.
I mean, if somebody who got vaccinated also
got the disease, it must mean the
vaccination doesn't work! Because, you know,
it's supposed to protect everybody. All the
time. No backsies.
It's strange, but I think I remember
somebody telling us a long time ago that the
vaccine was 95 percent effective, which
would mean (fire up your calculators) that
one person in twenty would still get sick.
Even with the vaccine. Remember that part,
kids?
No, of course we don't. This is one of those
things we just aren't that good at.
I have a friend who likes to beat up on
meteorologists. Now these are folks who live
by hedging their bets. Everything with them
is about 40 percent, or 80 percent, or some
sort of maybe-it-will, maybe-it-won't kind
of thing. But their clients don't like that
idea, so they just round--badly. Usually if
a weatherperson says there is a 50 percent
chance of rain, my friend will say, "It's
gonna rain today." Even though a fifty
percent chance is right down the middle of
the fairway. There is just as much chance of
no rain as there is of rain. That's not much
of a commitment on the weatherperson's part.
But, my friend having pronounced her own
judgement, if it doesn't rain, then the
meteorologist is WRONG! (grumble grumble
those people never get anything right
grumble grumble).
Even an 80 percent chance of rain means that
one in five times it won't rain. It's kind
of annoying planning your picnic around such
great mysteries, but hey, that is how they
roll. It's kind of complicated so don't pin
us down. The only time I really got sore at
a weather service was when I got rained on
during a run one morning and they had said
there was a zero percent chance of rain. I
figure that one didn't pan out.
Ninety-five percent is freakishly effective
for a vaccine. It is far better than the flu
shot usually is. But of course, one year I
got the flu, and when I got back to a class
I was teaching, the first thing one of my
students said was "you should get a flu
shot!" I tried not to seem too annoyed. "I
did" I replied. "Remember, shots are only
about 60 percent effective." That also
assumes that you caught one of the same
strains that were in the shot; that a year
earlier the makers of the shot correctly
guessed which strains would wind up being
dominant that year, and that your shot
hadn't started to wear off. I got the flu at
the end of March after getting vaccinated in
November. Imagine if I'd gotten the shot
back in August when Everybody is shrieking
at you to hurry up and get it six months
before flu season (nobody seems to know how
long these shots are effective, but there
are people in the medical community who say
it may be around six months, and others who
think it could be as short as three).
The point being that some of us who got our
shots are still going to get sick, though it
is not likely it will be severe. It would be
helpful to everyone if the hesitant half of
the population decided to get theirs, too,
so that this year doesn't wind up being
deadlier than last and we all have to make
the same sacrifices we've been making since
this whole mess started. There is a simple
answer to this crisis now, but it will only
last until the virus mutates into something
the vaccine cannot protect against. Then we
will have to start over again. In the
meantime, life is still uncertain. You have
to play the percentages if you want to
decide whether to do something. There is no
absolute guarantee I can make you that you
won't drop dead while visiting pianonoise.
But I'd say the odds are pretty low.
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