greg_boulder said:

True, and it depends on a baseline nobody has stated.

Mine went the same way, slower.

greg_boulder said:

True, and it depends on a baseline nobody has stated.

Adding the part of the answer the thread has not reached. Relative and absolute effects need reading together. A 20% relative reduction on a high baseline risk is a large absolute benefit; the same relative figure on a low baseline risk is a small one, and press summaries almost always quote the relative number because it is bigger.

The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. If you are comparing against somebody else’s result, check that you are comparing the same measurement taken the same way. Most of the apparent contradictions in these threads dissolve at that step.

Happy to go further on any of that.

A narrower follow-up, since the general answer is now clear:

How to read a result like this without either dismissing it or over-reading it, since the summaries all read like press releases?

dan_philly said:

If you are comparing against somebody else’s result, check that you are comparing the same measurement taken the same way.

Careful with the causal language. Two things moving together in a period when five things changed is not a mechanism, and stating it as one makes the thread less useful to somebody reading it later.