Originally Posted by
common cents
“Of course that gross fatality rate is for a sample aged 16 - over 80, what the study doesn't show is deaths broken out by age group. You would expect to see a markedly different set of numbers for the 70+ cohort.”
Agreed. Conversely the numbers for younger people would go in the opposite direction. Thereby bringing into question the need to vaccinate and expose this cohort to added risks.
The idea of protecting the elderly and clinically vulnerable is something we should have embraced from the beginning.
The absolutism that we are attempting now is without merit.
Your focus when it comes to any disease is generally on the most vulnerable group. Nobody really gives two hoots about whooping cough or RSV in adults, and nobody uses the whole population to determine the critical case fatality rate for those diseases.
And you vaccinate outside of the most vulnerable cohort for a couple of reasons.
One, to try to manage the incidence rate. That is of interest to you in order to mitigate the likelihood of exposing the vulnerable, vaccinated or not.
Two, because it is never a great idea to have large vaccinated and unvaccinated populations co-existing when a disease is pandemic. Doing so creates a reservoir for the development of mutations.