There follows a guest post by the academic economist who wrote a short post a few days ago about the apparent failure of the vaccine roll-out to reduce the number of over-60s being admitted to hospital with COVID-19 as a percentage of the number of over-60s testing positive rate. It generated a lively discussion in the comments so I asked the author to expand on it.
In the following short essay, I am going to examine whether the vaccines are preventing hospitalisations. We already know that the vaccines are not proving very effective at suppressing cases – which appear to be soaring in many countries, and notably the United Kingdom, in spite of the successful vaccine roll out and even though we are in summer and last summer cases remained suppressed. Some of us expected this to happen. The vaccine trials were rushed, the studies were of dubious quality, and they were released by drug companies who had a vested commercial interest in claiming high efficacy for the vaccines.
In addition to this, it should be obvious to anyone who gives it any thought that vaccines do not suppress highly contagious respiratory illnesses; more than half of Americans get flu shots every year, yet the United States has a flu season that is every bit as bad as Europe – which does not have high rates of annual flu vaccinations. A cynic might say that the flu vaccine business is much like the cosmetic business: a hustle by pharmaceutical companies to sell medicine to people who are not ill thereby massively expanding their market.
Now that it has become obvious that the vaccines are not preventing the spread of the virus, the public health clown show is doing what it does best: moving the goalposts. They are acting as if we knew all along that the vaccines did not prevent transmission. Instead, they tell us, the vaccines are there to prevent serious illness and death. We are supposed to ignore the fact that they are also insisting that groups that are not at-risk take the vaccine, but no matter – water under the bridge and if hundreds of young people die from blood clots or heart inflammation, so be it, better than Whitty and Vallance having to (gasp!) admit they were wrong.
Okay, well let us do what these clods never do: let’s test their hypothesis against the data. We are going to use data from Scotland (see here, here and here). Why? Because Scotland has had an outbreak that rivals previous outbreaks. The U.K. has not. It may appear the U.K. has had a full-on outbreak if you simply look at case data, but this is misleading. Testing has increased due to the proliferation of lateral flow testing. When we control for testing and look at the percent of tests that are positive rather than cases, we see this clearly.
Okay, so Scotland has a verified outbreak. How do we check whether the vaccines are preventing serious illness? Well, we know that serious illness only really occurs in older groups. We also know that older groups are more heavily vaccinated than younger groups. In fact, in Scotland almost 100% of over-60s are fully vaccinated. This provides us with a very nice natural experiment.
What we need to check is whether the correlation between positive cases among the over-60s and hospitalisations has broken down. In the pre-vaccination period we know that a certain percentage of positive cases among the over-60s would go on to become hospital patients. Well, if the public health boffins are correct and the vaccine prevents hospitalisations then fewer people should be being hospitalised relative to the number of cases. Do we see this?
Maybe. Squint and you will miss is. Hospitalisations do not appear to be rising quite as fast as cases in the over-60s. But let us not forget that testing has increased. So, what we really need to do is construct a positive test rate for the over-60s. With a bit of digging and applying a few statistical tricks, we can do this.
No squinting required this time around. The link has not been broken at all. The slight break between hospitalisations and cases in the over-60s is fully explained by the rise in testing. Control for this and the break disappears. Just as many people over the age of 60 are being hospitalised today in Scotland relative to the number of over-60s testing positive as they were before the vaccine roll-out began. The real-world evidence suggests that the vaccines are not, in fact, preventing serious illness. This confirms the impression we get reading the Scottish press. The Herald reports ‘Covid hospital admissions triple in over-60s — and nearly half of patients fully vaccinated’ – in fact, half is probably an understatement.
What about the link between hospitalisations and deaths? Perhaps the vaccines aren’t preventing serious illness, but maybe they’re preventing people with serious illness from dying?
Again, squint and you will miss it. Deaths are rising together with hospitalisations. If there are slightly fewer deaths relative to hospitalisations this could well be due to the better treatments for Covid that we know have been developed. Anyway, the notion that the vaccines will stop our hospitals from being overwhelmed – (were they ever really overwhelmed?) – is nonsense.
As we move into autumn and cases rise, it seems possible that the vaccines may fail spectacularly. What happens next? A rational society would turn on the public health buffoons and the greedy pharmaceutical companies. A rational society would take seriously the grim statistics on vaccine fatalities being reported to the Government’s Yellow Card system.
But we do not live in a rational society. We live in a society gripped by hysteria and fear; a society where control at both a governmental level and in day-to-day interactions has been handed over to the most neurotic and stupid among us. What will likely happen then is that these people double down. Rather than admit they were wrong they will get angry and project that anger on the people who doubted them. Those who have chosen not to get vaccinated will become increasingly vilified. They will be blamed for the hospitals stuffed full of fully vaccinated elderly people. Boosters will be insisted upon – and the dodgy pharmaceutical companies will continue to rake it in as they peddle untested drugs.
Either that, or our leaders grow spines and put a stop to this madness.
Stop Press: Covid hospital admissions among over-65s are a third of the level they would be if Britain didn’t have vaccines, according to PHE. MailOnline has more.
Stop Press 2: The Swiss Doctor has weighed in on this subject with a typically measured and erudite post.
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This article highlights just one thing.
We are being denied the data that would allow us to understand what is going on.
Hence this type of article, which does fancy stuff to try to get to a point where you can make sense of the information that we have. But they could simply have provided hospitalisations by age and by vaccination status — yet they don’t offer this info (any data ‘by vaccination status’ is rather sparse).
It would be far easier if the authorities provided data on cases/hospitalisations/deaths by age group (5 or 10 year intervals), by vaccination status (and by vaccine type), by vulnerability (normal/overweight/obese, diabetes, etc).
But they don’t provide this. All we get is top level information plus the occasional glimpses of massively over-detailed data that doesn’t actually help (eg, they’ll provided cases data by individual health authority, which is a massive spreadsheet, but not UK wide case data by age and vaccination status, which would be a simple table).
Frankly, this is weird. The only reason for them to withhold these data is because it doesn’t support their policies.
What a disaster this is.
There is a reason they do not publish such data.
The Israeli example disseminated by Gilad Atzmon a few days ago gave it away.
Same argument applies to the yellow card data. We need to know deaths and serious side effects by age group, but this is withheld from us plebs. I wonder why.
This is the crux of it all. For a disease that is absolutely defined by the metric of age no informed consent is possible without data on impact by age of the vaccine. The fact that data is not given is an admission that the truth would be shocking. They are choosing to kill young people for an agenda and they need to pay in blood for that choice.
Culling the young, gives a bigger return in terms of life years lost.
The rest of the population though, are not excluded from the cull, as those trusting people who have already taken the poisoned needle and are still with us, will almost certainly face a grim winter in terms of their health.
Those they can’t bully or coerce into taking the lethal injections, will have to be dealt with in a manner more fitting to the totalitarian regime in which we now find ourselves.
20 more covid vaccine-related deaths reported over the last week – the majority from the AZ injection. TheMHRA statement that the vast majority of reported deaths are in the very elderly/sick and they would have died anyway just doesn’t wash any more (if it ever did). I’m pretty sure that everyone now knows (either directly or indirectly) of at least one person who has died unexpectedly following the “vaccine”. And those dying are getting younger, according to the timeline of the yellow card reports. Why aren’t we hearing about post mortems? Why aren’t the MSM asking any questions? When they do report on a tragic death following vaccination, why do they continue to urge people to get vaccinated? This whole shitshow stinks to high heaven.
It is defined by age and it isn’t. This is only because people on average people tend to get frailer, weaker, and most importantly other diseases as they get older.
My mother is 66. She regularly walks and goes to the gym where she does a variety of stuff inc. strength training. She hasn’t drank or smoked in 40+ years and she eats a really healthy well balanced diet. She also exercises her brain and sleeps well.
My brother in law is 41 but basically does the opposite. He’s obese, does no exercise, drinks heavily, basically doesn’t looks after himself at all.
Now I would be much more confident that my mother would be more likely to survive covid than my bil. Who wouldn’t be? Age isn’t the defining factor in itself.
The vast majority of the risk is borne by the unhealthy – whether that is by virtue age and/or circumstance.
Very true. An article i read recently about looking after your immune system said that a 70 year old who is not overweight, exercises regularly and eats well has probably got a much better immune system than an obese 40 year old.
Absolutely, as I approach my 65th birthday I can reflect that 80 is the new old and I am merely middle aged.
While I see your point, about health, It is clear from the data that age is the defining factor. Like flu, it is a disease of the elderly in the main. The vast majority of people who were hospitalised and died were 60>
Statistically I think four out of five elderly people also survived contracting Covid so the more healthy you are the better.
I can’t remember who it was now, but someone made a very important point way back at the beginning when we only had the Italian data. He said covid works like an amplifier – if you are going to die soon it makes you die sooner, if you are already ill it makes you more ill. If you are healthy it may make you cough a bit, or not even that.
same as east germany with suicides pre-89
It might allow us sceptics to understand what is going on but most of the population are completely blind to any such data and they would not have a bar of it. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will have any affect on those fully paid up to the cult of Covid.
The forced release of data by Public Health Scotland tells yoy the story. in 2021 the deaths with covid within 28 days of vaccination are over 5,000. Pro-rata the deaths in England will be over 50,000. Public Health England refuse the disclose this info.
I think that is about 10x the deaths within 28 days with covid after a positive result.
The only reason for them to withhold these data is because it doesn’t support their policies.
This is a truism regarding governments generally.
The Scottish Executive (not a government in any serious sense – they couldn’t ‘govern’ a paper bag) stopped participation in two major international surveys of educational standards.
Only one reason for that – such information would have highlighted the Executive’s massive destruction of a once highly-rated system.
Appalling people. Turdgeon and the rest of them are just appalling people.
Perhaps now anytime anyone (Toby, IDS, well, everyone it seems) goes on TV/TalkRadio etc they can skip the preamble (hostage video script reading intro) “now that we have the world class vaccine” or “now that the vaccine has broken the link between infection and death” before getting on with their sceptical points.
That or blink three times if they have a gun to your families head…
“ We live in a society gripped by hysteria and fear; a society where control at both a governmental level and in day-to-day interactions has been handed over to the most neurotic and stupid among us. “
The general population is gripped by hysteria and fear. Those in charge are gripped by lust for power, cowardice, vanity, evil.
Send this link to all our totally useless MPs:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1418140713158651905
This is a post by swedenborg with the working link made under TU.
It suggests the same is true for the under 50s as well:
“In this latest PHE report for vaccinated versus unvaccinated under 50 year. Can anyone see any benefit? Case mortality the same and hardly significant difference in hospitalization. More and more data that the vaccine has not the effect under 50 as they stated.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/kerpen/status/1418562741246300167/
Bravo, Charles Johnson.
And bravo Daily Sceptic for publishing the article.
Indeed, an excellent article and credit to site.
Good to see DS (formerly LS) getting more sceptical /cynical re the so-called vaccines. Better late than never.
It would be interesting to see an analysis of share price performance for the three Big Pharmas against these data.
The problem is that there is so much to walk back.
– that Covid is not actually the terrifying killer they’ve made out
– that tests aren’t very helpful
– that isolating everyone achieves nothing
And of course that the vaccines don’t help.
They either walk it all back or none of it.
This shit ends when we end it. If only more people had the balls it would be over tomorrow. Want to deal with a pandemic? Try it without hospital staff. Vive la Revolution and baise Macron le baiseur de mamie
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.rt.com/news/530095-hospital-strike-france-mandatory-vaccine/amp/
The Scottish data is also interesting as they fessed up to over 5000 vaccine deaths after jabbing. You would think that the canny and usually highly numerate Scottish would start to wonder wtf!?
I’m not sure why we’re surprised by this as the vaccine trial data submitted by the drug companies did not include many people above the age of 60 and did not really look at severe outcomes including hospitalization or death in those age groups. They tested mostly healthy people with mild infections.
This is pretty thin stuff.
Why do you think it is so hard to obtain meaningful data in relation to covid?
“I would say it is really hard to tell from the chart whether relationship is broken or not”
OK. Fine. Then let’s just apply the sensible and rational scientific summary of that conclusion (and in relation to all other government major interventions) :
THE NULL HYPOTHESIS STANDS.
i.e., eighteen months on, there are no substantive grounds for any of these intrusive interventions (Lockdowns, Masks, Vaccines, Random Testing) The policies are insupportable.
Now – with that firmly and incontrovertibly established, can we get back to real science and real life?
What do you mean by the null hypothesis stands?
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We have been presented with results that are compatible with both the hypothesis that vaccines reduce the risk of hospitalisation and the hypothesis that they do not. i.e. it is not evidence either way. Neither hypothesis is favoured and we need to turn to other sources of evidence to find the answer.
77 night shift?
Define a “case”
Any chance someone could write something accurate about how the widespread use of masks impacts on the spread of the virus?
All the evidence (particularly the complete lack of visibility of enforced muzzle orders in the infection graphs) indicates that they have no impact at all.
They had the effect of making an unknown number of people believe everything had been much worse without them.
All the evidence?
To repeat my two favourite links to metastudies:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.20047217v2
This one looks at RCTs only. It concludes:
Most included trials had poor design, reporting and sparse events. There was insufficient evidence to provide a recommendation on the use of facial barriers without other measures…….. Based on observational evidence from the previous SARS epidemic included in the previous version of our Cochrane review we recommend the use of masks combined with other measures.
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
This is a much broader literature review looking at all sorts of evidence – not just RCTs – but necessarily more subjective. It concludes:
Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission: Nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size; people are most infectious in the initial period postinfection, where it is common to have few or no symptoms (45, 46, 141); nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses; and places and time periods where mask usage is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission
I understand that neither is definitive but they do suggest there is evidence on both sides.
Are you serious? The first study is not peer-reviewed and they clearly state they saw no evidence that masks worked? Have you read the comments below? Such as ,‘I am reassured that others also saw that their conclusion did not fit their data? You might as well have written it! Your second one again gives no scientific evidence either way, just opinions. There is not one gold standard RCT done in a social setting that shows masks are effective. Not one. The second study states that is because it would be unethical to do a study…the real reason is that the nearest study we have in a social setting is the Danish Mask Study, which found very little efficacy to masks wearing, and that would be replicated if any similar studies were done.
Odd isn’t it that there isn’t one RCT study on masks in a social setting but masks are demanded by the Tyrants, but Ivermectin, which has over thirty peer-reviewed RCTs is deemed an experiment?
Here is the link to the peer reviewed version of the first paper:
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/about/about-cochrane-library#:~:text=Cochrane%20Database%20of%20Systematic%20Reviews&text=Each%20Cochrane%20Review%20is%20a,for%20Diagnostic%20Test%20Accuracy%20Reviews.
Their conclusion was there was insufficient evidence to provide a recommendation based on the RCTs. This is not the same as no evidence that masks worked. In any case my case is simply that the issue is not settled. If there was conclusive evidence that masks did not work they would have said so. (The comments can come from anyone and are definitely not peer reviewed!)
It is absolutely true there is not one gold standard RCT done in a social setting that shows masks are effective, nor is there one that shows masks are ineffective (i.e. I don’t consider the Danish study to be gold standard – see limitations below). Which is my point.
With respect to the Danish study (I assume you mean this one). What it actually concluded was:
The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use. The data were compatible with lesser degrees of self-protection.
Note also the limitations:
Inconclusive results, missing data, variable adherence, patient-reported findings on home tests, no blinding, and no assessment of whether masks could decrease disease transmission from mask wearers to others. (my emphasis)
i.e. it made no attempt to assess the main reason masks are recommended and found some inconclusive evidence that masks protect the wearer to some extent.
I come back to my main point. It is simply not true that “All the evidence indicates that they have no impact at all.”
Ha ha ha, today I see that black has become white! They don’t work, I am mask free and need to prove nothing, you need to prove that wrong to make people wear them, and you can’t, it’s really that simple.
Outstanding article, worthy of a serious broadsheet newspaper.
Shame we don’t have any of those any more, just trashy propaganda outlets.
Well considering the vaccines are making people ill the answer us no… healthimpactnews.com
There is no virus or variant going around killing people. Its July, its a scam and a hoax. Its propaganda…wake up!
‘Wake up’ – yes, but try telling that to the woke!
My parents just told me that the couple nextdoor to them in their 60s both have covid and the man has pneumonia as a result…was sent home with oxygen. Both of them have recieved both jabs, as has their daughter who also tested postive but not sure if she has any symptoms.
But hey at least vaccine passports will help stop people getting sick…
But hey, at least they’ll be able to go abroad without having to quarantine, and go to a nightclub, or work in a care home, or go to university…
The photo represents 3% of the population injecting 0.7% of the population, very representative,.
Anyway I wanted to share the linked UK Government issued today, and suggest you look at the diagram on page 10. It shows remarkable similarity with the midset around vaccines.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1005307/energy-retail-strategy.pdf
So if this is true, the snake oil is rubbish.
Surprise. Oh surprise.
What THEY want above all us to get rid of the control group: the unvaxxed who stubbornly refuse to ‘test positive’, get ill, or die any more readily than the vaxoids.
Hang on in there.
I have to admit it’s looking more and more like the best choice. Until we starve to death because they won’t allow us access to society. The problem will be the way they twist the argument against the untreated. We know it’s coming!
On a more jolly note above 50% unmasked in Liverpool today I thought it would take longer to ditch the masks.
That is exactly it Annie. We are living proof that all of it was pointless and unnecessary
Hold The Line.
There MUST be journalists who read this. PLEASE honour your profession and do any or all of the following:
-challenge our CMO/DCMO at the press conferences. Demand their evidence.
-interview and broadcast/publish evidenced challenge such as that in this article
-promote the groups (online and podcasts) who contribute evidenced challenge to the nonsense we are told.
If you cannot/will not, are you really a journalist?
The French National assembly, equivalent to the US House of Representatives has passed Macron’s edit by 117 votes to 86 with 28 abstains, out of a total of 577 representatives, 346 absent! Absolutely disgraceful.
It now goes to the Senate for final agreement.
There were many amendments including a minimum for number applicable for restaurants, bars and cafes of 50. Many rural establishments will escape the ‘pass’.
Latest news for the Police is that they object to being used as a social security enforcers. The Central Railway Brigade says that over 50% are unvaxed and will not get vaxed and there is no way they will engorce this on TGVs.
Thousands axpected to be out on the steets tomorrow, Syndicat France Police – Policiers en Anger, ‘The climate in France is becoming totally unbreathable ”.
”” When the pressure cooker will explode, it is our staff who will be exposed on the front line while the politicians will stay warm and stashed in the palaces of the Republic “.
The risk the government is currently running? Massive demonstrations across the country, which could remind him that individual freedoms are a serious matter for citizens, that the strategy of panic has its limits, and that the police are citizens like any other , representative of the population.
The “absent” are utterly culpable. If they think that by not participating in the vote they are not responsible for what happens, I hope they get plenty of time to think on that in prison.
There are just too many unexplained, arbitrary assumptions in this text. Eg, in both England and Scotland, the test positivity rate has risen steeply. In Scotland, it had reached the same order of magnitude (although still below the actual value) as during the winter peak before it started to decline, in England, where such a decline might just have started (it might as well not) it only reached about 6% so far, up from some hundreths of a percent in April.
Why is the former (Scotland) being called a real outbreak (of positive tests) but not the latter?
Anything to do with tests should be ignored. Hasn’t that sunk in yet? Unless of course it’s a test using a lab culture process.
Far be it from a well-controlled prospective clinical trial linking testing of positive cases to hospitalisations in the Scottish population, assessing the effect of vaccination through their e-records, rain on the parade. I suggest you stick to economics.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00677-2/fulltext
Dated May and so data likely weightes to early roll out and Alpha? I would say that is important here. Things are changing, fast.
Indeed. But the analysis is ongoing. That was the initial publication. Chris Robertson analyses the data continuously. Scotland has a completely linked electronic records system. Vaccination is keeping delta out of hospital. Latest update.
https://www.strath.ac.uk/whystrathclyde/news/deltavariantincreaseshospitalisationbutvaccinecontinuestoprotect/
My favourite LDS article of all time I think.
I was running the numbers this afternoon after looking at the numbers in No19 Scariants of Concern datasheet.
It was obvious that in the 50+ cohort that vaccination has achieved nothing. Only 10% of ‘Delta’ cases are unvaccinated which approx corresponds to the percentage of over 50’s who have declined it !!!
In terms of fatalities in the 50+ cohorts it was a 5.6% CFR in the unvaccinated compared to 1.6% in the double jabbed so an Absolute Risk Reduction of 4% by my maths ! I fully expect that as more jabbed catch it, this difference will drop until it’s around less than 2% as Dr Richard Flemming demonstrated when he looked at the trial data.ss
I guess the vaccinated now have to worry about Covid and the long term side effects of the experimental trial they took part in!!!!!
If a CFR reduction from 5.6% to 1.6% is 4% in your maths, maybe it’s time to head back to school… While you are at understanding how percentages work, you can also as an additional exercise, compute how many 50+ people did not die because of having taken the vaccine.
It’s an absolute reduction of 4% and a relative reduction of 71.43%.
NB: I’m going to ignore further outbursts of amateur sophistry for today, as I have something much more important to do — clean my living room floor :-).
Take this back to your masters. It’s impossible to calculate ‘how many would have died without the experimental gene therapy, (not a vaccine by definition), without resorting to a model (also called a guess, or sometimes a lie). We deal in date here, not chicken bones or crystal balls. The data is clear.
Hi Ray. Please read my posts more carefully.
The “Absolute” Risk Reduction is 4%.
Also being backed up by data in Israel.
The US president is claiming 99% of hospitalisations are unvaccinated. I suppose the US is special
They are generating that number by using all hospitalisations since this whole saga began, ie every single admission from day 1, not a percentage of current admissions!
It’s amazing how easy it is to lie by the way you phrase certain statistics isn’t it?
Whoops, this “brilliant” “analysis” completely ignores the rather obvious fact that those over-60-year olds who experience a mild infection – thanks to the protection offered by the vaccine – won’t even bother to get tested, much less get admitted to a hospital. In other words, it demonstrates that even with vaccine some (but in absolute terms, much fewer) will get hospitalized (and a few of them will die as well). This is even visible in the graph – BOTH cases and hospitalizations are a fraction of what they used to be before the vaccination campaign (but of course, the author is going to pull out alternative explanations like “natural herd immunity” out of his ass).
Why are you on this site?
Because he/she is being paid to comment.
Nothing to back up your core claim that these people are, “unlikely to get tested”.
I’d suggest that those who have gone head first into this are exactly the people who are getting tested, regardless. They are being asked to and they seem to get a kick out of it.
“Hospital admission” = someone admitted for ANY reason and then getting a dodgy PCR test when they’re there and being counted as a scary covid admission. Total fraud.
The tone and direct shooting of this article is right over the target.
Get angry. Right now.
You still haven’t explained why hospitalisations and deaths are much lower in this wave than in previous waves. Tackle that question convincingly and then you’ve cracked it. Otherwise, it just looks like you’re projected your opinion onto the data.
I am no epidemiologist but those that are tell me that all viruses mutate to less lethal strains as there are less susceptible around in later stages of an epidemic.
Good question and answer. I believe all viruses mutate (if allowed to) to more transmissible, less dangerous strains. This answers the question. Unfortunately messing about with things like lockdowns and, to some extent, vaccines can lead to more dangerous mutations.
Perhaps because the most susceptible “dry grass” has already died …… of Covid, old-age or their other co-morbidities.
Excellent article but I have discovered that most people are morons and just will not countenance this narrative.
Why would “our leaders” grow spines and put a stop to this madness?
You are making the fundamental mistake of assuming that “our leaders” want this to end. They don’t; it’s all going to plan and it’s working wonderfully for them.
Apologies – this is slightly off-topic . . .
Given that most politicians and MSM are fully paid up subscribers to everything woke, for those of us who’ve not been jabbed – I think there may be mileage in adopting the ‘I’m a transvaxxite’ stance. If it works for the transgender group such that people (formerly known as men) can go to womens changing rooms and, even, be transferred to a woman’s prison, then its surely perfectly reasonable, logical and consistent for the unjabbed to self identify as fully vaccinated?
“They are acting as if we knew all along that the vaccines did not prevent transmission. Instead, they tell us, the vaccines are there to prevent serious illness and death. “
They hoped it would reduce transmissions, but they didn’t know because there is no evidence for it. As the EU authorisation notes.
https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/vaxzevria-previously-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca
Let’s stick to the hard evidence, otherwise the rebuttals lose all credibility.
This doesn’t make sense to me:
a) if someone is double vaccinated then how do they ascertain that they are “infected”?
b) if someone is double vaccinated and goes into hospital how do they ascertain that they have CoViD19?
Is it down to LFT/PCR results?
Are people presenting with respiratory symptoms and there’s an assumption that it’s CoViD19 and they do a test? A positive test result does not mean that the infective agent is SARS-CoV-2.
Are people still testing themselves without symptoms even after the double vaccination?
My wife is asthmatic, the other week she had increased shortness of breath which she recognised as an acute exacerbation. She has had both doses of the AstraZeneca concoction. When she spoke with the GP over the phone (no face to face) he asked if she was going to have a SARS-CoV-2 test just in case, she said no and after a course of steroids the problem resolved.
If the virus is in general circulation as it probably is then pretty much everyone will have some virus in their upper respiratory tract, which will be detected by the LFT test looking for antigens. An RT-PCR will almost certainly return a positive result.
Finally, the efficacy of the flu vaccine is also unknown as there are no control group to compare against.
On the second graph, how can the number of hospitalisations be higher than the number of cases?
The analysis assumes that cases should track the positive test rate. That doesn’t follow at all, unless testing is random, which it isn’t. As the article says, many more people are being tested. If previously tests were for those with symptoms, and now lots of asymptomatic people are testing as well, you would expect the positive rate to go down (because you’re not preselecting a group that is very likely to have Covid). If % positive results stays the same despite testing more widely, that implies more cases.
Inadvertently, the article provides pretty clear evidence the vaccines do work. If “almost 100% of over-60s are fully vaccinated” then you would expect that % to be the same in hospital admissions. But… “‘nearly half of patients (are) fully vaccinated’ – in fact, half is probably an understatement”.
The second part of that is offered without any evidence at all, so can be ignored. So over half of patients are unvaccinated. How can that be, when nearly 100% are fully vaccinated? Obviously, hospitalisations are coming massively disproportionately from the unvaccinated. Vaccines work. QED.
The one thing I agree with is that we should take a rational, sceptical response including querying the data we’re provided. This is not that, it’s a mangling of data to get the answer it wants, coupled with a bit of “hysteria and fear” about health risks.
Is there nowhere on the whole wide web that will actually interrogate the data honestly?