re: Okay, first I've heard of these accusations from RFK concerning the vaccine.

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I posted a report on a study.

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Your conclusions on that study were incorrect. Let's go to the real study:

LINK

This was a study done on only VA hospital inpatients, from Mar20-Nov21, with a definition of severe disease as requiring any supplemental oxygen or having an Sp02 reading <94% within 2 weeks of a positive COVID-19 test.

A few problems with your characterization of the results. First, the VA at this time conducted universal COVID-19 screening of all inpatients regardless of the reason for admission, so a number of these patients were ill for other reasons, admitted, then tested positive. This was not true universally, so rates vary.

Second, their definition didn't take into account other severe forms of illness due to COVID-19 infection. There is no mention of dialysis or extreme GI distress, for example.

Finally, this study was conducted to help improve the COVID-19 case definition as the vaccinated population changed the dynamics of the illness. From the results:

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From March 1, 2020, through January 23, 2021, the proportion of hospitalized patients with moderate-to-severe disease was 64.0% (95% CI, 63.1%–64.9%) and from January 21, 2021, through November 21, 2021, this proportion was 56.4% (95% CI, 55.6%–57.2%).

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Can we both agree that 64% and 56.4% are both above 50%? Even with that, the authors admit one limitation is that severe COVID-19 cases may have been more likely to be admitted to non-VA hospitals.

But back to the authors' main point, we saw a distinct shift in the proportion of hospitalized patients who tested positive for COVID-19 who were experiencing severe complications around the time the vaccine was introduced. In other words, the vaccine led to reduced rates of complication and was effective.

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In this large, national cohort, the proportion of hospitalizations due to moderate-to-severe COVID-19 decreased following vaccine availability, particularly among vaccinated patients.

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