6 ms·

> [bias in VE for hospitalization] Well there's no such bias in Australia, AFAIK. Everyone has the same testing requirements. Let's forget vaccine effectivene

by csee 5y ago

> [bias in VE for hospitalization] Well there's no such bias in Australia, AFAIK. Everyone has the same testing requirements. Let's forget vaccine effectiveness (VE) against hospitalization, because as far as Israel is concerned you may be right. What about VE against mortality? How could this data be biased? I always focus on VE against mortality, since it's the least prone to bias. (EDIT: I see your link to Fenton & Neil, I will discuss below) > [Airport testing] That's interesting, but there are other explanations for this. For example, natural immunity in a large % of the 'unvaccinated' population by the time that this study was done. Another explanation could be old people self-selecting into the vaccinated population. That will again make vaccines seem weaker than they are in reality, especially in their ability to prevent infection. I also note that the RCT which you like showed strong VE against infection (against an old variant). > Is that the only reason it doesn't exist? Probably yes? And if not, it's probably some other basic explanation, such as Pfizer not wanting to waste their own money on a trial if the FDA didn't require it. They are for profit, after all. Is there a need for some deeper reason? Occam's Razor. > Fenton & Neil's work Interesting. Maybe this bias existed in that ONS report at a particular time period, I didn't read the full report, it's quite long. Maybe this bias exists in all the data sets being reported by different countries. It's possible. But what about the VE against mortality in countries that have plateued vaccination rates, where such a bias is going to be minimal? Wouldn't we find evidence of a sharp drop in VE over a rolling 4-8 week window? Can anyone show me this happening to any of the big countries? If someone can show me that - and the data public in a number of countries, so it should be possible to show - I will probably change my mind.

beagle3 5y ago
> What about VE against mortality? How could this data be biased? At least two ways: (a) Fenton & Neil trick in the blog posts I linked - it applies to any measure. Note that people who died in the first 28 days post original shot are considered unvaccinated, despite all tests showing very significant antibody response in 12 days. (b) Ignoring all cause mortality. Taken ad absurdum: Inject cyanide. 100% efficiency against corona death. Step back from absurdum: it's possible the vaccine induces "silent covid" by generating the spike but failing the PCR tests -- so that, in fact, as far as mortality goes, it is equivalent to getting sick, but as far as testing goes, it's never attributed to covid. > That's interesting, but there are other explanations for this. Yes, there's always other explanations for everything. You reach your conclusions because of your prior, which is "the vaccine is effective, let's see how and why". Which is fine, but you should acknowledge your prior rather then assume it is universal. I have a less informative prior, and the data is much less convincing under that prior. > They are for profit And have already paid billions of dollars in fines for past "for profit against health" actions. BMJ editor Peter Doshi has shown -- as soon as they've published -- that equally valid interpretations of Pfizer's own data can show 29% effectiveness. Now, there are two ways to interpret the data - one shows 95% effectiveness against mild disease (and no information about severe disease), and one shows 29% against mild disease (and no information about severe disease). Which one do you expect a for-profit company to champion? > But what about the VE against mortality in countries that have plateued vaccination rates, where such a bias is going to be minimal? Wouldn't we find evidence of a sharp drop in VE over a rolling 4-8 week window? Can anyone show me this happening to any of the big countries? It is, in fact, the current narrative, that vaccine efficiency drops significantly after 4 months or so, and that's why a booster shot is needed (Israel has already been administering the 4th shot for a month, Fauci is talking about doing same in the US). It is strictly in the negative territory for mild disease now, still positive (but dropping) for severe disease and mortalitly. Some of it is blamed on immune escaping variants, but the dropping VE is seen everywhere. Don't have the links handy, but that's why they are boosting, officially.
- csee 5y ago
  > (b) Ignoring all cause mortality... But the RCT showed that vaccine safety isn't a big part of the picture, so all-cause mortality won't be relevant. The difference in non-Covid deaths was statistically insignificant. Yes the mRNA vaccines are more likely to cause myocarditis than Covid itself, but so far I haven't seen evidence that it has translated into a big source of mortality. (It may have, I guess?) > [rest] Let's ignore VE against mild disease for now. I just want to nail down VE against death, which is less susceptible to sampling bias, manipulation, and so on. We should be able to easily answer this question conclusively by finding 1 or 2 countries where vaccine administration has plateued (which is actually most countries now), and simply measuring the VE against death over the last 8 weeks. Has anyone something like that? My guess is that the VE is still very high, which is fairly conclusive evidence that the vaccines work at preventing death from Covid and that VE against death can't all be explained by the Fenton & Neil trick. And since the vaccines were shown to be safe in the RCT, that is proof that they work at preventing death itself - especially in older populations where the risk of Covid is higher and the risk of myocarditis is lower. > [vaccine immunity is in the] negative territory for mild disease now IIRC, this was just a 5000 sample study in one European country, and the result was inconsistent between Delta and Omicron. Or has this finding been replicated? (I don't want to get into the weeds on this question, though, since I want to talk about VE against death). > vaccine efficiency drops significantly after 4 months or so Sure, I don't dispute this.
  - beagle3 5y ago
    On mobile and no time, but I’ll say this now: I agree we should look at death, as that’s not subject to sampling bias. I disagree we should look at Covid death exclusively - that IS subject to attribution bias. I look (and have, in the last two years) only at all cause mortality. Israel and the US have both experienced increase in all cause death in 2021 that is not attributed to either Covid or vaccines. What is it then? No one seems to know (cdc classifies it under “not sure”). Very significant excess (40% or so) in young ages in Israel, only in 2021, at times that correlate to big vaccine drives with a 1-2 months shift. No cause data yet. The RCT was not powered enough to show safety or extreme lack of it. The celebrated safety paper (based on biased Israeli data), Balicer, Lifsitz et al is statistical garbage with a predetermined result (lumps 16-60 age group when it was already known 16-24 myocarditis risk is 1:4000 and at 50 assumed to be 1:100000, for example) My interpretation is that the rushed approval missed some safety issues. The vaccine is likely worth it for >60 or people with comorbidities. For young healthy people …. The data doesn’t say that, and does say “something is weird”

by csee 5y ago

beagle3 5y ago

> What about VE against mortality? How could this data be biased? At least two ways: (a) Fenton & Neil trick in the blog posts I linked - it applies to any measure. Note that people who died in the first 28 days post original shot are considered unvaccinated, despite all tests showing very significant antibody response in 12 days. (b) Ignoring all cause mortality. Taken ad absurdum: Inject cyanide. 100% efficiency against corona death. Step back from absurdum: it's possible the vaccine induces "silent covid" by generating the spike but failing the PCR tests -- so that, in fact, as far as mortality goes, it is equivalent to getting sick, but as far as testing goes, it's never attributed to covid. > That's interesting, but there are other explanations for this. Yes, there's always other explanations for everything. You reach your conclusions because of your prior, which is "the vaccine is effective, let's see how and why". Which is fine, but you should acknowledge your prior rather then assume it is universal. I have a less informative prior, and the data is much less convincing under that prior. > They are for profit And have already paid billions of dollars in fines for past "for profit against health" actions. BMJ editor Peter Doshi has shown -- as soon as they've published -- that equally valid interpretations of Pfizer's own data can show 29% effectiveness. Now, there are two ways to interpret the data - one shows 95% effectiveness against mild disease (and no information about severe disease), and one shows 29% against mild disease (and no information about severe disease). Which one do you expect a for-profit company to champion? > But what about the VE against mortality in countries that have plateued vaccination rates, where such a bias is going to be minimal? Wouldn't we find evidence of a sharp drop in VE over a rolling 4-8 week window? Can anyone show me this happening to any of the big countries? It is, in fact, the current narrative, that vaccine efficiency drops significantly after 4 months or so, and that's why a booster shot is needed (Israel has already been administering the 4th shot for a month, Fauci is talking about doing same in the US). It is strictly in the negative territory for mild disease now, still positive (but dropping) for severe disease and mortalitly. Some of it is blamed on immune escaping variants, but the dropping VE is seen everywhere. Don't have the links handy, but that's why they are boosting, officially.

csee 5y ago
> (b) Ignoring all cause mortality... But the RCT showed that vaccine safety isn't a big part of the picture, so all-cause mortality won't be relevant. The difference in non-Covid deaths was statistically insignificant. Yes the mRNA vaccines are more likely to cause myocarditis than Covid itself, but so far I haven't seen evidence that it has translated into a big source of mortality. (It may have, I guess?) > [rest] Let's ignore VE against mild disease for now. I just want to nail down VE against death, which is less susceptible to sampling bias, manipulation, and so on. We should be able to easily answer this question conclusively by finding 1 or 2 countries where vaccine administration has plateued (which is actually most countries now), and simply measuring the VE against death over the last 8 weeks. Has anyone something like that? My guess is that the VE is still very high, which is fairly conclusive evidence that the vaccines work at preventing death from Covid and that VE against death can't all be explained by the Fenton & Neil trick. And since the vaccines were shown to be safe in the RCT, that is proof that they work at preventing death itself - especially in older populations where the risk of Covid is higher and the risk of myocarditis is lower. > [vaccine immunity is in the] negative territory for mild disease now IIRC, this was just a 5000 sample study in one European country, and the result was inconsistent between Delta and Omicron. Or has this finding been replicated? (I don't want to get into the weeds on this question, though, since I want to talk about VE against death). > vaccine efficiency drops significantly after 4 months or so Sure, I don't dispute this.
- beagle3 5y ago
  On mobile and no time, but I’ll say this now: I agree we should look at death, as that’s not subject to sampling bias. I disagree we should look at Covid death exclusively - that IS subject to attribution bias. I look (and have, in the last two years) only at all cause mortality. Israel and the US have both experienced increase in all cause death in 2021 that is not attributed to either Covid or vaccines. What is it then? No one seems to know (cdc classifies it under “not sure”). Very significant excess (40% or so) in young ages in Israel, only in 2021, at times that correlate to big vaccine drives with a 1-2 months shift. No cause data yet. The RCT was not powered enough to show safety or extreme lack of it. The celebrated safety paper (based on biased Israeli data), Balicer, Lifsitz et al is statistical garbage with a predetermined result (lumps 16-60 age group when it was already known 16-24 myocarditis risk is 1:4000 and at 50 assumed to be 1:100000, for example) My interpretation is that the rushed approval missed some safety issues. The vaccine is likely worth it for >60 or people with comorbidities. For young healthy people …. The data doesn’t say that, and does say “something is weird”