4 ms·

Covid is becoming increasingly vaccine enabled

15 points by verisimi 5y ago

verisimi 5y ago
This is a great statistical breakdown of covid infection rates using the official statistics. Some quotes: "those with 3 doses are now all between 2.6X and 4.91X the risk of contracting covid." "no one looks protected from infection, all look like they have been made far more vulnerable." "and this risk ratio enhancement looks to be accelerating upward." "having been “inoculated” with these mRNA and adenovirus products could wind up generating a long-term syndrome in which those whose immune systems were altered cannot generate immunity to the evolving covid pathogens that take advantage of their non-adaptive immune responses" "even the folks i know who were still saying “thank goodness i got boosted it made my second time catching covid milder than it would have been!” are not going to be OK getting it a third time (as many vaccinated seem to be starting to be) and the fact that this is not happening to the unjabbed will get noticed, esp in the US. there is still a significant control group. " -- There seems to be even worse state of affairs in New Zealand, where: "Double-Injected Have SIX TIMES the Infection Rate of the Uninjected in New Zealand — Government Data" from https://anti-empire.com/double-injected-have-six-times-the-infection-rate-of-the-uninjected-in-new-zealand-government-data/ https://anti-empire.com/double-injected-have-six-times-the-i...
- eesmith 5y ago
  Don't follow people who can't do basic statistics. That source for New Zealand completely misreads the data. The left side of the first chart (and mos shows cases per 100,000 population total, NOT per population in each specific vaccination class. You have to adjust based on the population in each class. https://www.health.govt.nz/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-vaccine-data#total-vaccinations https://www.health.govt.nz/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-... shows that 95% of the population are fully vaccinated, and 4% are not vaccinated. That's a ratio of about 20-25x. Your reference states that for every unvaccinated person with a case, there are 6 fully-vaccinated people with a case. Which means the unvaccinated are about 4x likely to have a reported case than the fully-vaccinated. But that's "ONE FOURTH the Infection Rate", not the almost complete opposite "SIX TIMES the Infection Rate". Now, I can wrong about the numbers. The above is a back-of-the-envelop calculation by someone who knows little about the specific NZ details. But they are enough to point out that the stated "SIX TIMES the infection rate" is a drastically wrong understanding of the data. Going back the main link (to boriquagato.substack.com), I also read "i took the raw data from the vaccine reports and compared cases per 100k population" and "by dividing cases per 100k in vaxxed by unvaxxed". Is it really the same miscalculation?!? Why divide "cases per 100k population" instead of "cases"? Otherwise, as the number of unvaccinated people goes done, their case numbers go down, even if the infection rate is higher. And the linked-to sources even say "Comparing case rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations should not be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection. Vaccine effectiveness has been formally estimated from a number of different sources and is summarised on pages 4 to 14 in this report." (quoting https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1063023/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-12.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... )
  - verisimi 5y ago
    Re NZ, I take your point - that is a possible way of reading the data. I personally read it as 4 separate readings being shown. Ie that the ratio 20-25x ratios had been accounted for in the plotting on the graph - or alternatively, that the number of cases each group had been standardised in order to provide a straightforward comparison. Its not clear from the provided info what we are seeing though. More broadly, its hard to say what is being stated without the raw data. We can certainly say that the data is not being provided in a straightforward, accessible way to the public. Instead, what is a health issue, has become highly politicised. As well as the lack of available date, we also have unknowns around the data collection (eg no distinction between deaths 'with' or 'from' covid, that people are not considered fully vaccinated until 2 weeks after their 2nd jab). This itself is a huge cause for concern. We should have open access to all this info - with all hands to the pump and all voices and interpretations - and try to let the statistics speak for themselves. > And the linked-to sources even say "Comparing case rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations should not be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection. Vaccine effectiveness has been formally estimated from a number of different sources and is summarised on pages 4 to 14 in this report." but then when I look at those pages, I see: "Large clinical trials have been undertaken for each of the COVID-19 vaccines approved in the UK which found that they are highly efficacious at preventing symptomatic disease in the populations that were studied. The clinical trials have been designed to be able to assess the efficacy of the vaccine against laboratory confirmed symptomatic disease with a relatively short follow up period so that effective vaccines can be introduced as rapidly as possible. Post implementation real world vaccine effectiveness studies are needed to understand vaccine effectiveness against different outcomes (such as severe disease and onwards transmission), effectiveness in different subgroups of the population and against different variants as well as to understand the duration of protection.Vaccine effectiveness is estimated by comparing rates of disease in vaccinated individuals to rates in unvaccinated individuals. Below we outline the latest real-world evidence on vaccine effectiveness from studies in UK populations. Where available we focus on data related to the Omicron variant which is currently dominant in the UK." I read that as saying that they are highly efficacious at preventing symptoms. They also say they are comparing vaccinated to the unvaccinated, but the only reference I see to the unvaccinated is on page 14, and it doesn't have any numbers!
lowlystatsguy 5y ago
There is nothing statistical about this analysis. The core of statistics is uncertainty, and I see no reporting of it within this post. Further, no statistician worth their salt would ever be their own hype man; they would understand just how many times a “stunning result” was really just a logical error or explained by confounding factors. Both the content and rhetoric in this post was disappointing enough for me to make an account just to say this.
- verisimi 5y ago
  Fair enough - I appreciate your thoughts. Is it a shame in your view, that the raw data is not being made easily available? Wouldn't that make it easier to say what is going on? It seems though that this issue is highly politicised, and that there is no easy way for us to review the real information. We get changes of definitions (the definitions of vaccines, viruses have been changed), the way of reporting deaths was changed (eg dying 'with' not 'of' covid), even what counts as vaccinated is surprising to me (you are only considered vaccinated a full 2 weeks after you have your second jab (presumably the same applies to boosters)). So, we don't know the terms of what is being collected, and that data is not being provided. For me this is a major problem, and I see no reason for the secrecy.
hnplj 5y ago
gus_massa 5y ago
It would be interesting to repeat this with death instead of cases. Perhaps people that avoid vaccination probably also avoid testing and reporting asymptomatic or almost asymptomatic infections. Death are more easy to count without bias. About the increase of cases during the last year, another cause may be the relaxing of the restrictions. I'm not tracking the situation in UK but here in Argentina we had a very strict lockdown in 2020 and part of 2021 but now it's almost over and there are very few restrictions.
- verisimi 5y ago
  I absolutely agree about using death rather than cases. If you test 100s of times, you will find more cases. Apart from anything, there are false positives. However, even looking at 'deaths with covid' I think there is a problem, in that governments made a decision to count people who died WITH covid as the same thing as dying OF covid. They are not the same thing. So, on death certificates they put covid down as the cause of death if the person tested positive, regardless of what caused the death. If a person who had tested positive but died in a car crash, this would be added to the covid death statistics. This is to say the data is 'muddy'. Perhaps it is even better to use simple death counts, regardless of the cause. Were they up in the first year, and down in the second, as you would expect? If they were down in the first, but up in the second, there is surely a case to answer as to whether the vaccinations have caused harm.
  - moistly 5y ago
    > there is surely a case to answer as to whether the vaccinations have caused harm Answer: they reduced harmful outcomes by orders of magnitude. It is stupid to suggest that this is in question. Nothing is harmless. Obviously a few people had bad reactions to the vaccine. Obviously it is not 100% effective. But those numbers a nothing compared to the reduction in unnecessary deaths and unnecessarily shortened, taste-free, mentally-fogged, or otherwise harmed lives.
    - verisimi 5y ago
      for your info, what I said - with context - was: > If they were down in the first, but up in the second, there is surely a case to answer as to whether the vaccinations have caused harm. "If" I didn't say they have caused harm, I'm saying we don't know. We don't have the data to know. But in the spirit of truth, this would be worth investigating.
jleyank 5y ago
1) Variants are deviating from the original germ line so the vaccines are less effective. 2) Protection by non-sterilizing vaccines is limited-duration. Getting sick and recovering isn't any better. 3) In Canada, 70-90% of the population is vaccinated, and the sucker's quite contagious. Therefore, most of the people getting sick are vaccinated because most of the people breathing are vaccinated. As another writer pointed out - tally outcomes not infections. 4) This is probably a political or anti-vax screed. Remember, if Covid becomes flu- or cold-like, which it is hopefully the case, people can catch those things again and again. We take flu-shots to minimize bad results not to not get flu.
- verisimi 5y ago
  > 4) This is probably a political or anti-vax screed. I understand you saying that. My 'screed' is truth. I confess I do not trust my government to provide me the truth. It seems to me that the way the data is gathered and presented is not seem to be open or clear. Given that, I am interested to read what others are able to uncover from the bits of data that are provided. > most of the people getting sick are vaccinated because most of the people breathing are vaccinated. As another writer pointed out - tally outcomes not infections. I take that point - but as I said re the NZ data, its not clear that it is a tally. For me though, if 70-90% of people getting ill are vaccinated as you say, that's terrible! What is the value of a vaccine? According to the definition of vaccination I hold to (and I know this has been conveniently changed), very few should become ill once vaccinated. And since when do we have so many vaccinations, in such a short time? This is all new science, as far as I am concerned. Why did governments take such a hard line, locking people in their houses for a year, preventing unvaccinated people from travelling, locking down the world economy, etc? None of it makes sense.
  - jleyank 5y ago
    It makes sense because Covid was far more dangerous w/o vaccines and w/o Omicron. The amazingly rapid appearance of a wide range of effective vaccines and the very fortuitous appearance of Omicron out of the blue seems to have provided the path to normality. People willingly forget that things were not looking quite so rosy a year ago. And remember, there could have been a zig towards SARS/MERS toxicity rather than flu-like toxicity. Better to keep the transmission rate as low as possible so more places didn't max out their medical facilities. Remember the reefer trucks holding those who died from covid, and places with 95% ICU occupancy and real problems getting a delivery room? Here in Canada the numbers from effluent testing suggests a very large wave is starting. So far, there has not been a spike in ICU occupancy although hospital occupancy has started to tick upwards. If this continues to be the case, we're in a fundamentally different place with Covid. And man, I hope that's the case - we all do.

15 points by verisimi 5y ago

This is a great statistical breakdown of covid infection rates using the official statistics. Some quotes: "those with 3 doses are now all between 2.6X and 4.91X the risk of contracting covid." "no one looks protected from infection, all look like they have been made far more vulnerable." "and this risk ratio enhancement looks to be accelerating upward." "having been “inoculated” with these mRNA and adenovirus products could wind up generating a long-term syndrome in which those whose immune systems were altered cannot generate immunity to the evolving covid pathogens that take advantage of their non-adaptive immune responses" "even the folks i know who were still saying “thank goodness i got boosted it made my second time catching covid milder than it would have been!” are not going to be OK getting it a third time (as many vaccinated seem to be starting to be) and the fact that this is not happening to the unjabbed will get noticed, esp in the US. there is still a significant control group. " -- There seems to be even worse state of affairs in New Zealand, where: "Double-Injected Have SIX TIMES the Infection Rate of the Uninjected in New Zealand — Government Data" from https://anti-empire.com/double-injected-have-six-times-the-infection-rate-of-the-uninjected-in-new-zealand-government-data/ https://anti-empire.com/double-injected-have-six-times-the-i...

eesmith 5y ago
Don't follow people who can't do basic statistics. That source for New Zealand completely misreads the data. The left side of the first chart (and mos shows cases per 100,000 population total, NOT per population in each specific vaccination class. You have to adjust based on the population in each class. https://www.health.govt.nz/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-vaccine-data#total-vaccinations https://www.health.govt.nz/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-... shows that 95% of the population are fully vaccinated, and 4% are not vaccinated. That's a ratio of about 20-25x. Your reference states that for every unvaccinated person with a case, there are 6 fully-vaccinated people with a case. Which means the unvaccinated are about 4x likely to have a reported case than the fully-vaccinated. But that's "ONE FOURTH the Infection Rate", not the almost complete opposite "SIX TIMES the Infection Rate". Now, I can wrong about the numbers. The above is a back-of-the-envelop calculation by someone who knows little about the specific NZ details. But they are enough to point out that the stated "SIX TIMES the infection rate" is a drastically wrong understanding of the data. Going back the main link (to boriquagato.substack.com), I also read "i took the raw data from the vaccine reports and compared cases per 100k population" and "by dividing cases per 100k in vaxxed by unvaxxed". Is it really the same miscalculation?!? Why divide "cases per 100k population" instead of "cases"? Otherwise, as the number of unvaccinated people goes done, their case numbers go down, even if the infection rate is higher. And the linked-to sources even say "Comparing case rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations should not be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection. Vaccine effectiveness has been formally estimated from a number of different sources and is summarised on pages 4 to 14 in this report." (quoting https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1063023/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-12.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... )
- verisimi 5y ago
  Re NZ, I take your point - that is a possible way of reading the data. I personally read it as 4 separate readings being shown. Ie that the ratio 20-25x ratios had been accounted for in the plotting on the graph - or alternatively, that the number of cases each group had been standardised in order to provide a straightforward comparison. Its not clear from the provided info what we are seeing though. More broadly, its hard to say what is being stated without the raw data. We can certainly say that the data is not being provided in a straightforward, accessible way to the public. Instead, what is a health issue, has become highly politicised. As well as the lack of available date, we also have unknowns around the data collection (eg no distinction between deaths 'with' or 'from' covid, that people are not considered fully vaccinated until 2 weeks after their 2nd jab). This itself is a huge cause for concern. We should have open access to all this info - with all hands to the pump and all voices and interpretations - and try to let the statistics speak for themselves. > And the linked-to sources even say "Comparing case rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations should not be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection. Vaccine effectiveness has been formally estimated from a number of different sources and is summarised on pages 4 to 14 in this report." but then when I look at those pages, I see: "Large clinical trials have been undertaken for each of the COVID-19 vaccines approved in the UK which found that they are highly efficacious at preventing symptomatic disease in the populations that were studied. The clinical trials have been designed to be able to assess the efficacy of the vaccine against laboratory confirmed symptomatic disease with a relatively short follow up period so that effective vaccines can be introduced as rapidly as possible. Post implementation real world vaccine effectiveness studies are needed to understand vaccine effectiveness against different outcomes (such as severe disease and onwards transmission), effectiveness in different subgroups of the population and against different variants as well as to understand the duration of protection.Vaccine effectiveness is estimated by comparing rates of disease in vaccinated individuals to rates in unvaccinated individuals. Below we outline the latest real-world evidence on vaccine effectiveness from studies in UK populations. Where available we focus on data related to the Omicron variant which is currently dominant in the UK." I read that as saying that they are highly efficacious at preventing symptoms. They also say they are comparing vaccinated to the unvaccinated, but the only reference I see to the unvaccinated is on page 14, and it doesn't have any numbers!

lowlystatsguy 5y ago

There is nothing statistical about this analysis. The core of statistics is uncertainty, and I see no reporting of it within this post. Further, no statistician worth their salt would ever be their own hype man; they would understand just how many times a “stunning result” was really just a logical error or explained by confounding factors. Both the content and rhetoric in this post was disappointing enough for me to make an account just to say this.

verisimi 5y ago
Fair enough - I appreciate your thoughts. Is it a shame in your view, that the raw data is not being made easily available? Wouldn't that make it easier to say what is going on? It seems though that this issue is highly politicised, and that there is no easy way for us to review the real information. We get changes of definitions (the definitions of vaccines, viruses have been changed), the way of reporting deaths was changed (eg dying 'with' not 'of' covid), even what counts as vaccinated is surprising to me (you are only considered vaccinated a full 2 weeks after you have your second jab (presumably the same applies to boosters)). So, we don't know the terms of what is being collected, and that data is not being provided. For me this is a major problem, and I see no reason for the secrecy.

hnplj 5y ago

gus_massa 5y ago

It would be interesting to repeat this with death instead of cases. Perhaps people that avoid vaccination probably also avoid testing and reporting asymptomatic or almost asymptomatic infections. Death are more easy to count without bias. About the increase of cases during the last year, another cause may be the relaxing of the restrictions. I'm not tracking the situation in UK but here in Argentina we had a very strict lockdown in 2020 and part of 2021 but now it's almost over and there are very few restrictions.

verisimi 5y ago
I absolutely agree about using death rather than cases. If you test 100s of times, you will find more cases. Apart from anything, there are false positives. However, even looking at 'deaths with covid' I think there is a problem, in that governments made a decision to count people who died WITH covid as the same thing as dying OF covid. They are not the same thing. So, on death certificates they put covid down as the cause of death if the person tested positive, regardless of what caused the death. If a person who had tested positive but died in a car crash, this would be added to the covid death statistics. This is to say the data is 'muddy'. Perhaps it is even better to use simple death counts, regardless of the cause. Were they up in the first year, and down in the second, as you would expect? If they were down in the first, but up in the second, there is surely a case to answer as to whether the vaccinations have caused harm.
- moistly 5y ago
  > there is surely a case to answer as to whether the vaccinations have caused harm Answer: they reduced harmful outcomes by orders of magnitude. It is stupid to suggest that this is in question. Nothing is harmless. Obviously a few people had bad reactions to the vaccine. Obviously it is not 100% effective. But those numbers a nothing compared to the reduction in unnecessary deaths and unnecessarily shortened, taste-free, mentally-fogged, or otherwise harmed lives.
  - verisimi 5y ago
    for your info, what I said - with context - was: > If they were down in the first, but up in the second, there is surely a case to answer as to whether the vaccinations have caused harm. "If" I didn't say they have caused harm, I'm saying we don't know. We don't have the data to know. But in the spirit of truth, this would be worth investigating.

jleyank 5y ago

1) Variants are deviating from the original germ line so the vaccines are less effective. 2) Protection by non-sterilizing vaccines is limited-duration. Getting sick and recovering isn't any better. 3) In Canada, 70-90% of the population is vaccinated, and the sucker's quite contagious. Therefore, most of the people getting sick are vaccinated because most of the people breathing are vaccinated. As another writer pointed out - tally outcomes not infections. 4) This is probably a political or anti-vax screed. Remember, if Covid becomes flu- or cold-like, which it is hopefully the case, people can catch those things again and again. We take flu-shots to minimize bad results not to not get flu.

verisimi 5y ago
> 4) This is probably a political or anti-vax screed. I understand you saying that. My 'screed' is truth. I confess I do not trust my government to provide me the truth. It seems to me that the way the data is gathered and presented is not seem to be open or clear. Given that, I am interested to read what others are able to uncover from the bits of data that are provided. > most of the people getting sick are vaccinated because most of the people breathing are vaccinated. As another writer pointed out - tally outcomes not infections. I take that point - but as I said re the NZ data, its not clear that it is a tally. For me though, if 70-90% of people getting ill are vaccinated as you say, that's terrible! What is the value of a vaccine? According to the definition of vaccination I hold to (and I know this has been conveniently changed), very few should become ill once vaccinated. And since when do we have so many vaccinations, in such a short time? This is all new science, as far as I am concerned. Why did governments take such a hard line, locking people in their houses for a year, preventing unvaccinated people from travelling, locking down the world economy, etc? None of it makes sense.
- jleyank 5y ago
  It makes sense because Covid was far more dangerous w/o vaccines and w/o Omicron. The amazingly rapid appearance of a wide range of effective vaccines and the very fortuitous appearance of Omicron out of the blue seems to have provided the path to normality. People willingly forget that things were not looking quite so rosy a year ago. And remember, there could have been a zig towards SARS/MERS toxicity rather than flu-like toxicity. Better to keep the transmission rate as low as possible so more places didn't max out their medical facilities. Remember the reefer trucks holding those who died from covid, and places with 95% ICU occupancy and real problems getting a delivery room? Here in Canada the numbers from effluent testing suggests a very large wave is starting. So far, there has not been a spike in ICU occupancy although hospital occupancy has started to tick upwards. If this continues to be the case, we're in a fundamentally different place with Covid. And man, I hope that's the case - we all do.