5 ms·

> (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 dif

by 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”
- csee 5y ago
  So, we agree that vaccines prevent significant numbers of Covid deaths, as presumably shown by VE against death after the plateau of the vaccination drive. We're now discussing the extent to which vaccines are killing lots of people. Your data in support of this is unexplained excess deaths in the US and Israel in 2021. I remember seeing something here on HN about Israel's excess deaths implying vaccines caused deaths and thinking it was bogus. Please send me the link again. As for US excess deaths, why can't this just be Covid? Does every state test every death? Also, the RCT wasn't underpowered. On what basis do you make that assertion? If the vaccines were killing a large number of people, it should've shown up in the RCT. The only way the RCT could have been underpowered is if the vaccines only kill so few people, that you need a gigantic sample size in order to tease out that small effect. That's what underpowered means. Unless you think the vaccine is only killing people after a long period of time (but that would be a separate issue to being underpowered)?
  - beagle3 5y ago
    > We're now discussing the extent to which vaccines are killing lots of people. Your data in support of this is unexplained excess deaths in the US and Israel in 2021. Not exactly. What I'm saying is that the vaccine surely reduces the number of people whose death is attributed to covid, but I see no reason to believe it reduces any death _at all_, and it might even increase death. E.g., you seem to care if covid death is replaced by a flu death (reducing covid death, but not changing all cause), whereas I don't, regardless of vaccine safety. > I remember seeing something here on HN about Israel's excess deaths implying vaccines caused deaths and thinking it was bogus. Please send me the link again. I have no idea which link you are referring to. But data here is well summarised here https://twitter.com/OS51388957/status/1485609513428398081 https://twitter.com/OS51388957/status/1485609513428398081 - note the rise in 2021 in ages 20-39, which is not attributed to covid (and Israel has a crazy amount of testing, about 4% of the population each day at this point, averaging 1.5% all year long in 2021). The rise in 0-19 is only compared to 2020 (which is unusually low - quarantines&lockdowns did not save anyone in that age group from covid death, but they did significantly reduce traffic deaths, which a significant percentage of deaths in that age group). I don't have a handy reference for the per-month breakdown, but there is 30-40% excess in months following vaccine drives, and 0-10% in others. > As for US excess deaths, why can't this just be Covid? Does every state test every death? There are huge financial incentives to report covid deaths and hospitalizations, the point many people suspect _over_ reporting of covid deaths. States are not even required to test for covid to consider something covid, it's enough for the case to be "likely covid". What this section mostly includes is sudden deaths, where you didn't have any warning -- if you have warning, you usually have an idea for the cause. So you are claiming it's "sudden covid death", where people die from covid without any signs ahead of time, and which only happens starting mid 2021 or so -- does that make any sense to you? > Also, the RCT wasn't underpowered. On what basis do you make that assertion? On the basis of the proof you gave above yourself. 24% more deaths within 6 months of the vaccine, for a group of (essentially) healthy 18-50 year olds. Your calculation showed that if it increases death by 24% in that group, you wouldn't see it. Let's say the vaccine saves 1% of the people over 60 that get it from covid death, but kills 0.01% of all people that get it at any age with "random" cause. What you would see in the general population is ... exactly what you see. Population all cause mortality within statistical variation, mostly; But significant acm increase in groups that tend not to die, such as 20-39. I'm intimately familiar with Israeli data, residing here now (and .. Israel has some of the best population level tracking, so it's useful to look at). 2020 had lower all cause mortality per 100K than 2015, despite now vaccines. 2021 has higher all cause mortality per 100K than any year since 2010, with vaccines (pending final revisions, but they almost always go up' not down). Corona attributed death do not explain the difference. Something is weird, and the main thing that changed is ... the vaccine drive.

by csee 5y ago

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”

csee 5y ago
So, we agree that vaccines prevent significant numbers of Covid deaths, as presumably shown by VE against death after the plateau of the vaccination drive. We're now discussing the extent to which vaccines are killing lots of people. Your data in support of this is unexplained excess deaths in the US and Israel in 2021. I remember seeing something here on HN about Israel's excess deaths implying vaccines caused deaths and thinking it was bogus. Please send me the link again. As for US excess deaths, why can't this just be Covid? Does every state test every death? Also, the RCT wasn't underpowered. On what basis do you make that assertion? If the vaccines were killing a large number of people, it should've shown up in the RCT. The only way the RCT could have been underpowered is if the vaccines only kill so few people, that you need a gigantic sample size in order to tease out that small effect. That's what underpowered means. Unless you think the vaccine is only killing people after a long period of time (but that would be a separate issue to being underpowered)?
- beagle3 5y ago
  > We're now discussing the extent to which vaccines are killing lots of people. Your data in support of this is unexplained excess deaths in the US and Israel in 2021. Not exactly. What I'm saying is that the vaccine surely reduces the number of people whose death is attributed to covid, but I see no reason to believe it reduces any death _at all_, and it might even increase death. E.g., you seem to care if covid death is replaced by a flu death (reducing covid death, but not changing all cause), whereas I don't, regardless of vaccine safety. > I remember seeing something here on HN about Israel's excess deaths implying vaccines caused deaths and thinking it was bogus. Please send me the link again. I have no idea which link you are referring to. But data here is well summarised here https://twitter.com/OS51388957/status/1485609513428398081 https://twitter.com/OS51388957/status/1485609513428398081 - note the rise in 2021 in ages 20-39, which is not attributed to covid (and Israel has a crazy amount of testing, about 4% of the population each day at this point, averaging 1.5% all year long in 2021). The rise in 0-19 is only compared to 2020 (which is unusually low - quarantines&lockdowns did not save anyone in that age group from covid death, but they did significantly reduce traffic deaths, which a significant percentage of deaths in that age group). I don't have a handy reference for the per-month breakdown, but there is 30-40% excess in months following vaccine drives, and 0-10% in others. > As for US excess deaths, why can't this just be Covid? Does every state test every death? There are huge financial incentives to report covid deaths and hospitalizations, the point many people suspect _over_ reporting of covid deaths. States are not even required to test for covid to consider something covid, it's enough for the case to be "likely covid". What this section mostly includes is sudden deaths, where you didn't have any warning -- if you have warning, you usually have an idea for the cause. So you are claiming it's "sudden covid death", where people die from covid without any signs ahead of time, and which only happens starting mid 2021 or so -- does that make any sense to you? > Also, the RCT wasn't underpowered. On what basis do you make that assertion? On the basis of the proof you gave above yourself. 24% more deaths within 6 months of the vaccine, for a group of (essentially) healthy 18-50 year olds. Your calculation showed that if it increases death by 24% in that group, you wouldn't see it. Let's say the vaccine saves 1% of the people over 60 that get it from covid death, but kills 0.01% of all people that get it at any age with "random" cause. What you would see in the general population is ... exactly what you see. Population all cause mortality within statistical variation, mostly; But significant acm increase in groups that tend not to die, such as 20-39. I'm intimately familiar with Israeli data, residing here now (and .. Israel has some of the best population level tracking, so it's useful to look at). 2020 had lower all cause mortality per 100K than 2015, despite now vaccines. 2021 has higher all cause mortality per 100K than any year since 2010, with vaccines (pending final revisions, but they almost always go up' not down). Corona attributed death do not explain the difference. Something is weird, and the main thing that changed is ... the vaccine drive.