At a town hall on July 21, in Cincinnati, President Joe Biden, in stressing the importance of COVID-19 vaccines, made the following statement: “If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in an ICU unit, and you’re not going to die.”
The statement is false.
Although the COVID-19 vaccines are effective, no single vaccine is 100% effective at preventing infection.
Per the Centers for Disease Control, both mRNA vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer, are over 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19. Based on data from clinical trials, Moderna is 94.1% effective and Pfizer is 95% effective, according to the CDC. The Johnson & Johnson Janssen COVID-19 vaccine is 66.3% effective based on data from clinical trials.
While it’s true that the vaccines are highly effective, breakthrough cases are possible, and expected, per the CDC: “COVID-19 vaccines are effective and are a critical tool to bring the pandemic under control. However, no vaccines are 100% effective at preventing illness in vaccinated people. There will be a small percentage of fully vaccinated people who still get sick, are hospitalized, or die from COVID-19.”
According to the CDC, as of July 12, there have been 159 million people in the United States who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 and 5,492 reported cases of COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections that require hospitalization or resulted in death. While this is a small percentage, it’s inaccurate to claim that there have been no fatal breakthrough cases.
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Well…. The chances of infection are there. But the chances of hospitalization, ICU, and death are very, very, very, very low. And that is what Biden said. So what he said was mostly true, and it was far better marketing than, “yes, a very small percentage of vaccinated people get infected and hospitalized but it is such a small number that it isn’t worth worrying about, and you should get vaccinated.”
In any reasonable statistical analysis Biden’s statement is true enough for a political leader encouraging citizens to do something good for them and good for the country. And way truer than most of the malarkey he spouts on a regular basis.
He gets a pass on this on statistical significance grounds.
Replace "not" in his statement with "highly unlikely" and what he said is completely true. Much like it's highly unlikely that politicians, especially this politician, will embrace nuance and refrain from making hyperbolic statements.