It's so frustrating that all news media outlets are using percentages to describe effectiveness. I know that's how the companies are describing it, but the public really needs simpler easier...
It's so frustrating that all news media outlets are using percentages to describe effectiveness.
I know that's how the companies are describing it, but the public really needs simpler easier information.
Table 4 shows the prevalence of low numeracy skills among U.S. adults—overall and stratified by educational attainment.The skills of the general adult public with high-school education correspond roughly to those of the female veterans, whereas the skills of people with higher education are better on average.Note again the great difficulty large parts of the public, like the female veterans, have with translating small frequencies into percentages. Only 25% of the population could correctly convert 1 in 1,000 to 0.1%. Even among the highest education groups, at most 30% could solve this translation task. Lipkus, Samsa, and Rimer (2001) even found that only 21% of well-educated adults could answer this question correctly.
The vaccine, made by the US giant’s subsidiary Janssen, based in Belgium, was trialled with 44,000 people in the US, South Africa and Brazil. The US has ordered 100m doses with an option for more. Further trials involving a second dose are taking place in the UK – and the British government has bought 30m doses. The EU has ordered 400m doses. The company could not say what the timetable for supply would be, assuming regulators approve it.
In the US, the vaccine had 72% efficacy in preventing mild to moderate cases of Covid but a lower rate of 66% was observed globally in the large trial conducted across three continents and against multiple variants. It gave people 85% protection against severe illness, even in South Africa which is struggling with a problematic variant of the virus. The vaccine gave 100% protection against hospitalisation and death, as do the other vaccines now approved in the US and Europe.
There could be “a messaging challenge” in the US, however, he said, because people might assume the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, which have around 95% efficacy, were better. But the real importance was that the vaccine would prevent hospitalisation and death in the US and around the world.
[...] The vaccine needs only one shot and can be stored and transported at fridge temperatures of 2C to 8C, unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the UK have already been looking at the early data. J&J said it would be filing for emergency authorisation in the US, Europe and the UK next week. .
The US has an agreement to buy 100m doses of J&J’s vaccine for $1bn (£730m). The company said in a statement the vaccine would be ready immediately upon emergency approval but declined to specify how many doses. The US government also has the option of purchasing an additional 200m doses.
It's so frustrating that all news media outlets are using percentages to describe effectiveness.
I know that's how the companies are describing it, but the public really needs simpler easier information.
https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/157/Papers/health_stats.pdf