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Alcibiades's avatar

Not quite a paradox, but something everyone falls for:

A has a positive correlation with B.

B has a positive correlation with C.

"Statement about A being positively correlated with C."

But correlations are not transitive. It is possible for A and C to have no correlation, or even a negative correlation. The above claim can only be made with correlations very close to 1. Which pretty much never happens.

I'd like more citizen distrust, or at least hesitancy in this area. The default response to any random statistic should be "that's probably wrong". There are so many easy ways to make mistakes. We know that most Doctors don't understand sensitivity vs specificity. We are living through the replication crisis.

So yes, please more citizen thinking in this area. But it should mainly be critical thinking for the purpose of falsification.

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Elana's avatar

I have been ranting about this on the Slow Boring Substack for months now. As a PCP I think it's super important to be as objective and unemotional about Covid risks as possible. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to have a lack of clear, firm data and statistics. Numbers are freakin' all over the place depending on which study you read. We just don't have a firm handle on numbers vaccinated and numbers of breakthrough infections. The data on hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths are a little clearer. It makes it very difficult to know how to advise individual patients about their individual risks, especially for my vaccinated seniors. For them, there is a risk to both underestimating the risk, which could lead to a breakthrough infection (even w/o hospitalization, that could take quite a toll on a senior), and to overestimating risk, leading to repeat isolation and depression. How great is their risk if they are >6 months out from their second shot? How effective are boosters going to be? Don't know. Difficult to advise.

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