the metaphor is valid for epidemiology studies. at the core you're just tallying the chances of an objectively observable binary outcome in a series of predetermined groups

I'm not sure where your experiment of rolling infinitesimally loaded dice in a sealed black box is coming from but it's so completely absurd and disconnected from the practical and theoretical considerations associated with epidemiology that I needn't comment on it

> of course there are other factors involved, but statistical power is always hugely dependent on the raw numbers

always is correct

my very first answer could have specified "always in epidemiology studies", but it was evident from context; unless you've forgotten what this discussion is about (which very much seems to be the case, at this point you just want to convince yourself that you are right to doubt the faithfulness of the original article and whoever defends it)

I've already given answers to these arguments. You're over-interpreting what I've said and have built a straw man that I won't bother taking down

if you want to believe you know, do just that

> That's the assumptions you've made. That's not the same as that actually being the case, nor is it the same as there being a logical basis to from that conclusion

there's definitely a logical basis :) now of course, you're clearly not honest with me, so I'm only permitted suspicions

> I think that this might highlight your problem here. This idea that it "always" comes down to which scenario has more frequent occurrences is exactly the type of dumbed-down, overgeneralized claim you'd find in a basic statistics book

not at all; I'm not recommending a basic book because it will give you the answer you're looking for, but because it's where you need to start

> Seriously, have you ever been involved in a real-world research study where you were going to have to collect a ton of data and then analyze it?

its my job

> Don't know anything about me.

it seems you have formal training in physics but not in statistics

> Insist on repeatedly stressing how incompetent/untrained/unskilled I am, despite knowing nothing about me.

you keep denying elementary statistical principles, so I assume that you don't have that knowledge

you keep failing to see the problem from a broad statistical perspective. That alone is proof of your incompetence, and why I recommended reading a basic book. You don't have the foundation to transfer your knowledge of physical data analysis to medical data analysis

there's nothing I can do for you here. You need to read through a basic statistics book. Seems like you have some training in physics so hopefully the mathematical aspects won't be a problem for you

And stop believing people more competent than you on a subject are out to get you. I'm trying to explain in a few lines things you need several years of formal learning to fully understand, of course there are going to be many caveats. That doesn't mean I'm not doing my best to portray things honestly. Now if you don't want to trust me, well, as I said, learn statistics yourself

> Whenever someone starts off by trying to make it known how much smarter and better educated/trained they are, I know I'm in for some excellent analyses and good faith engagement.

I'm telling you that the answer you're looking is statistical in essence, and that you cannot understand the answer if you do not understand the underlying statistical approach

> So what if the second dice is 10 billion times less fair/more loaded than the first dice?

even if the die always rolled the same number you'd still need at least 5 hours to go anywhere. In those 5 hours you would be able to have detected/excluded very small deviations in the other die (note that you can never exclude extremely small deviations)

So of course there are other factors involved, but statistical power is always hugely dependent on the raw numbers

the current problem isn't like this anyway. Proving that the booster is at most 99% efficient against hospitalization is relatively easy, but it's a result that's useless, as instead the question that's relevant for policy is to get an estimate of its efficiency within a maybe 10% ballpark; is it around 20%, 50%, 80%? So it's the same order of magnitude as for the efficiency on symptoms

> Your stance is that I'm wrong and that the error in my thinking is because of the superior statistical training that you have?

It's not a stance. Whenever statistics are involved, it's intrinsically harder to work with events that are rare, and it's something that's very intuitive to all statisticians. I've tried to explain why that's the case but it's useless if you don't listen

> First, there is no clear explanation in the official report detailing what makes this particular answer easier to get than something like how effective it is at reducing hospitalizations.

They don't have to explain; anyone who's trained in statistics knows

It's always the same reason: you have many more people to work with; because comparatively very few people get hospitalized. It's like if you're trying to check if two dice are loaded, but there's one die you can roll every few seconds and another you can roll only once every hour

Of course if you could collect literally all data on all patients nationwide/worldwide you'd have enough cases, but one, the logistics of that would be extremely difficult to organize, and two, people in the US/Europe don't want such a totalitarian surveillance of their personal health anyway. So there's a limit to the scale of the studies that are practically feasible

None of these technicalities matter anyway. I don't think you realize just how much the cost/benefit ratio is skewed towards getting vaccinated. You're basically complaining that the weight of your car is given in pounds rather than in ounces

well thats what i'm saying, that this isn't the complete answer

but it's partial simply because some answers are easier to get than others. Since the results are announced as we go, of course the answers for the simpler questions will be available first

but then, very importantly, having one answer already modifies the likelihoods for what the answers will be to the other questions -- that is, the expectations we can have regarding those other questions given our knowledge of related questions and our general knowledge of infectious diseases and immunology

specifically, if we know the booster works against the XBB variant in general, then it's very likely it also helps prevent serious illness/hospitalization

yes its definitely harder to measure. anyway i only meant the present result is only the first half of the answer

the real question is how much protection it offers against the hospitalization/death risk, and the long-term symptoms risk

it's simply because the earth is a sphere that's spinning

considering a spinning sphere, then there's an axis; that's your north-south direction. and then perpendicular to that are planes within which things are spinning -- if you're somewhere on the surface of the earth you're moving in a circle -- that's your east-west direction

note that the notion of north etc is completely unrelated to the sun, it only has to do with the earth's rotation

tbh this hardly qualifies as news at this point, sweet beverages are likely the single worst dietary habit one can have

the thing is, you're getting the meat anyway. might as well save the glands