Obviously vaccines have been in the news a lot recently, and are a topic of concern for the world right now. Statistics play a large role in studying vaccines, in particular in the process of approving them for use and understanding what risks and benefits are involved in administering vaccines to a large population.
Here are a couple links that are worth reading about this important topic:
- “What Do Vaccine Efficacy Numbers Actually Mean?” (NY Times, 3 March 2021)
- “The risk-reward calculus of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, visualized” (Washington Post, 13 April 2021)
Here is an excerpt from the NYT article explaining vaccine efficacy:
and later in the article is this passage:
additional link we discussed in class:
https://www.mathbootcamps.com/interpreting-confidence-intervals/
“Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine”
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577