It’s official: I am spouting misinformation about the Covid vaccines. Full Fact – the Google, Facebook and George Soros-funded outfit that Ofcom has said it relies on to tell it what to censor regarding COVID-19 – has ‘fact checked‘ my recent piece on PHE data showing negative vaccine effectiveness in August and branded it “incorrect”.
Writer Leo Benedictus – henceforth to be known as the Oracle – takes particular issue with the headline, which he says “falsely claims that a report from Public Health England (PHE) shows the COVID-19 vaccines having ‘negative effectiveness’ in the over-40s”.
“This is not true about the COVID-19 vaccines – nor is it true that the PHE report shows this,” the Oracle declares. Except it is. The data contained in the report is completely clear, and the calculation of unadjusted vaccine effectiveness from that data is straightforward.
According to the Oracle, however, this is not a valid way of estimating vaccine effectiveness. Benedictus quotes the PHE report stating as much – “The vaccination status of cases, inpatients and deaths is not the most appropriate method to assess vaccine effectiveness and there is a high risk of misinterpretation” – and notes that I too quote this. What he fails to acknowledge, though, is that I also examine the reason PHE gives for this claim and counter it.
The only substantive reason PHE gives that vaccine effectiveness might be underestimated in its data is that “vaccination has been prioritised in individuals who are more susceptible or more at risk of severe disease”. In other words, the high-risk are over-represented in the vaccinated and this skews the sample. I countered that the large majority of the older age groups are now vaccinated so this bias should be very much reduced. Of course, we also need to ask why, if this is supposedly the key confounder of the data presented, we are not also provided with the necessary data on risk categories so that it can be duly quantified and accounted for.
Benedictus reiterates PHE’s claim that vaccine effectiveness should only be estimated via the published studies. However, as I noted in my article, these studies are riddled with serious problems and inconsistencies that bring their findings into question. They are also out of date since they don’t cover the Delta surge, which is the first time the vaccines have really been stress-tested in the U.K.
Benedictus spends half the ‘fact check’ in a bizarre attempt to argue that my vaccine effectiveness calculation is wrong because I used the data PHE itself used for the size of the unvaccinated population. He points out it is different to the ONS figures on this. Er, take that one up with PHE, Leo.
It does seem at times that Benedictus is fact-checking the PHE report rather than my article. At one point he takes the report to task because one of its charts sowed confusion as it “seemed to show for the month in question (August 9th to September 5th) that people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s were more likely to test positive for Covid if they had been vaccinated than if they hadn’t”.
Except the chart didn’t ‘seem’ to show that; it did show that. Again though we are told that this data does “not give a reliable estimate of vaccine effectiveness” because of biases in the samples.
But who defines what makes an estimate of vaccine effectiveness ‘reliable’ enough to be permitted without being labelled false? All vaccine efficacy estimates have limitations arising from the limitations of the data, including those produced by PHE. I was careful to acknowledge the limitations of the estimates I was making, saying they were unadjusted for risk factors – though argued that this shouldn’t matter so much anymore given high coverage. There’s also the point that being high-risk may affect the risk of serious disease and death but there’s no reason to think it will have an impact on infection rates (save for the small number of immuno-compromised).
The unmistakable impression here is of a gatekeeping exercise by the Government and its outriders to ensure it controls the concept of vaccine effectiveness and no one unauthorised is allowed to make an estimate of it. Thus the availability of the data is carefully controlled and we only get a month at a time and without the additional data that would allow us to control for the supposed biases that the report tells us the data includes and which ‘invalidate’ any attempt to make an unauthorised calculation of vaccine effectiveness.
None of this concept-policing does anything to alter the facts, however. In recent weeks reported infection rates have been higher in the double vaccinated than in the unvaccinated for the over-40s. That means that, for this period, (unadjusted) vaccine effectiveness is negative in those age groups.
PHE has published two new reports since my article and in each the unadjusted vaccine efficacy has declined further. Here is the table using data from the latest report, covering August 23rd to September 19th (the related chart from the report itself is above).
It shows that in the two weeks since my article the vaccine effectiveness has dropped further, with unadjusted vaccine effectiveness in the over-40s now hitting as low as minus-53% among people in their 60s. This means that, on this data for this age group, the double vaccinated experienced a 53% higher reported infection rate than the unvaccinated in the past month. And that’s a fact.
Stop Press: Professor Norman Fenton and Professor Martin Neil on the Probability and Risk site have used age-adjusted all-cause mortality to estimate vaccine effectiveness and found that mortality rates are currently higher in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated.
Stop Press 2: Professor David Paton has produced a good Twitter thread responding to one of the more well-informed critics of this (and other) pieces citing the PHE data.
Discussion
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You will be pleased to know that there is yet another fact check dropped on shares of this article on facebook
The fact checker
Umme Kulsum started working for Logically in December 2017 and is a Moderator within the Fact-Checking team. She holds a Bachelor`s degree in Commerce from Mysore Institute of Commerce and Arts (MICA).
https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/262394f6
I had posted this article onto my facebook page 6 days ago and today facebook informed me the article has been “fact checked” as “Misleadfing”.
A perceptive 10 year old can see, and could see from the start, that Covid-19 has nothing to do with real science (ie, it’s a crimes against humanity political scam).
As just one glaring example, in July of this year Christian Vélot, Ph.D., a French geneticist, stated…
“[…] by vaccinating massively during a pandemic, we create selection pressure in favor of variants. In a way, we create with mass vaccination vis-à-vis variants the same situation as with the abuse of antibiotics that leads to antibiotic resistance. These have free reign because all bacteria vulnerable to the antibiotic are gone and can no longer “occupy the territory” and limit the proliferation of resistant variants.” (https://dennisriches.wordpress.com/2021/09/07/covid-19-experimental-vaccines-and-vaccine-strategy-interview-with-geneticist-christian-velot/ )
or this…
“Drugs known and administered for fifty years (eg hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin) suddenly became dangerous and (Covid) vaccines without any history of use are deemed safe and without risk. On what scientific rationality are these choices based?” (https://dennisriches.wordpress.com/2021/09/07/covid-19-experimental-vaccines-and-vaccine-strategy-interview-with-geneticist-christian-velot/ )
Luc Montagnier, a French virologist and Nobel Prize Recipient, said the same thing about the Covid vaccines — THEY create the variants — noting “You see it in each country, it’s the same: the curve of vaccination is followed by the curve of deaths.” (https://thenewamerican.com/french-nobel-prize-winner-warns-vaccines-facilitate-development-of-deadlier-covid-variants-urges-the-public-to-reject-jabs/ )
… Read more »
The liars:
Fauci
Daszack,
Farrar,
Vallance
Hancock
ONS
UN
WHO
JCVI
MHRA
NHS
PHE
CDC
FDA
Gavi
Big Pharma
All our Government ministers.
The Controller: B. Gates.
Well done Will. Hat off to you.
I knew something big was coming when it has been soooo quiet lately. And here it is folks. The next step to the great reset. A lorry driver shortage. Not really new, we have known for at least three months, the gov’ts just mistakenly didn’t bother to do a thing about it. Today, no petrol at the stations, food shelves in most large grocery chains very thin, and GP surgeries have not had blood vials for over two months. So if you cannot refuel your car to get to work, and you have no car to drive around to dozens of food stores, and you cannot get a simple blood test which might just save your life, well too bad.
Yes, this is the next step in the evil plaN. Nothing else makes sense. When the gov’t wanted to rollout jabs to every living creature in the UK it took what? A couple of weeks. But food, petrol and blood vials, we just can’t seem to pull our thumbs out and get things running again. I wonder why that is. You know how Australia had locked down like forever. That is one approach at forcing everyone to get jabbed. The… Read more »
Story in todays DT about excess deaths
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/24/analysis-thousands-usual-dying-not-covid/
So what are these thousands dying of? Turns out heart disease, strokes and respiratory infections are to blame. Did anyone make the connection that these are all problems associated with the so-called vaccination? That would not suit the government narrative and so they don’t make the connection. That’s the trouble with lies; you have to keep making up new ones to cover the holes in the old ones.
Statistics themselves are not enough it’s who controls the statistics
To paraphrase Lenin
Can someone on here (I haven’t read the article in full) explain what a NEGATIVE Vaccine effectiveness really means? Does it ENHANCE susceptibility to the virus/disease??
Genuine question. I find it perplexing. reading Greek and Latin seems to be a lot easier.
Yes, possibly because it is initially immunosuppressive.
Why do you think they measure efficacy from 14 days post jab 2? It’s because in the first 14 days, or so, the efficacy is negative across all age groups. The data from Israel makes this pretty clear. The first 14 day period is lumped in with unvaccinated, thereby inflating the unvaccinated numbers, decreasing the vaccinated. It’s all part of the con.
Remember Bismarck’s famous aphorism: “Never believe anything until it has been officially denied”
Great work Sir.
Another likely confounder is that people who have chosen not to have the vaccine may also be less likely to seek a covid test for mild symptoms, or when asymptomatic, compared to the group who have had the vaccine. This difference in behaviour would depress the number of identified “cases” in the unvaccinated group.
That is what we call “cherry picking” – ignoring evidence cause it doesn’t support your premise.
Here are my newest tin foil hat thoughts. I was watching an episode recently of ‘The Highwire’, and Del Bigtree referenced some studies that I found particularly of note; that there is some growing evidence that the vaccine might be wiping out people’s naturally acquired immunity by nausing up their immune systems with this junk. If those findings are replicated then I think the implications of that are HUGE as it means that potentially the virus can never become truly endemic as you are always artificially creating a susceptible population instead of letting herd immunity arise. The upshot being that this never ends. Not saying this was by design, probably more just catastrophic human intervention but it’s food for thought, for me at least.
Crush the natural immune system, replace it with a manufactured immune system… First jabs are free, and then you have to pay in future, forever… Classic drug pusher behaviour.
How do you think they will treat the deaths expected among cancer patients who are no longer in remission after receiving both jabs (report from cancer hospital in the US of cancers growing rapidly after being in remission and cancer spreading to many other organs)?
Any bets on “nothing to do with the jabs” ?
Excess cancer deaths need careful watching as they are likely to be dismissed for other reasons unless autopsies are conducted to show novel changes in growth type and progression through the body.
Good food for a good thought. The effect of the “vaccines” is waning because it is meant to – MOAR BOOSTERS! It may well also be intended to crash your natural immunity so EVEN MOAR BOOSTERS! Forever.
And again, look at ONS all causes death rates for vaccinated vs unvaccinated. The vaccines are the biggest medical disaster in history. Ten years from now – if there is anyone left to say it – everyone will agree.
Well, Will – I’ve criticized you at times, so you deserve compliments for this report on a seminal issue.
I think I would take a slightly different line on interpretation – which is that the comparisons made by PHE have one over-riding feature :
Taking the data at face value, positive or negative differences are absolutely minimal, particularly when you consider the fact that you have to catch the virus before being a relevant item, thus confirming the ARR of ~1%.
There’s also the old ‘proportionality’ issue that’s been raised here previously :
Put ‘100,000’ (instead of 1,800) at the top of the y-axis, and all bars retreat into insignificance – even invisibility.
One further note :
“In other words, the high-risk are over-represented in the vaccinated and this skews the sample. I countered that the large majority of the older age groups are now vaccinated so this bias should be very much reduced.”
One might add the hypothesis that early vaccination also played a role in killing off a susceptible proportion of that vulnerable population at an early stage, given the rise in mortality that emerges in December.
Whatever – I only see confirmation of my decision not to… Read more »
Is “fact” another of those new Plastic Words?
Those pesky facts just keep getting in the way don’t they.
I’m sure a lot of you will have seen Alex Berenson’s post from last night about average deaths in Scotland being >25% higher than the five year average. Just in case though, here it is https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/fair-is-foul-and-foul-is-fair
More pesky facts.
I’ve been noticing a trend of high death totals/rates for many weeks. I’d have to check but I seem to recall Northern Ireland had its worst August death total on record (since 1990). Deaths in England and Wales were up about 17% on the previous August. “Covid deaths”* are also running at multiple levels higher than the exact same, jab-free period last year.
*(All the usual caveats apply)
I think you may need glasses 🙂
As said – there’s nothing exceptional about recent all-cause mortality.
High rate of heart problems in Scotland. Could make them vulnerable.
It really isn’t an exaggeration when we say that we are living in an Orwellian dystopia.
We are. I’m trying my hardest to live parallel to it.
Hi Nymeria, hope you’re OK my dear.
Hello, Jo. Any better and I couldn’t stand it 🙂 Hope you’re ok too. You should stop by some time and say hello to the old gang who are now on the Reddit site.
With a hefty dose of Huxley’s Brave New World too.
What a surprise, the ‘efficacy’ is dropping as the summer turns to autumn.
I have met the aforementioned Leo. He is a smugger, more privileged version of his fox-killing, kimono-wearing shyster lawyer brother, Jolyon Maugham (who took his stepfather’s name), but without the eccentric charm.
Still, nice offices at 2 Carlton Gardens, St James’s, wedged between Pall Mall and The Mall. I bet the rent is very reasonable. And it’s convenient to share a building with the Institute for Government and The Privy Council Office.
Hold on. As a chicken keeper, I support fox reduction. Is he shooting them?
Hi Sandra, I’m not a sentimentalist about foxes, I just threw in the mention as Jolyon Maugham once rather notoriously tweeted about beating a fox to death with a baseball bat in his garden. Caused a bit of a stir among his followers.
If both Will’s and PHE’s reports are based on data collected by means of a PCR test, they are both rubbish.
At 40-45 cycles will the PCR test not show a bias in the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated whom have no prior infection?
The amplification or CT rate stops immediately when a positive result is achieved.
They may be designated to go up to 45 amplifications but taking the UK ONS Infection Survey as an example the vast, vast majority of positive results are achieved before 35 amplifications and there are NO positive results after 37 amplifications.
The first 10% of cases are positive at around a 18 CT rate, 25% of positives at around a 24 CT rate, 50% around a 31 CT rate, 75% around a 33 CT rate and 90% around a 34 CT rate.
It is governments who decide not to differentiate between the infectious and the possibly 60% who are not infectious, it is not a fault with the PCR test or most scientists. The scientists advising governments are the ones who are corrupt.
CT rate is not the only issue – how many segments of the gene they “identify” and the primers etc.used is just as important as I understand. Read pages 57 -70 of the ILLA expose of the original Cormen-Drosten RT-PCR mass testing process. Initially a triple segment was reduced to a single segment; unless that segment was unique to SARS COV2 is it not logical that other asessments of a “positive” PCR test – never mind the “factory based” assessment of the swab casting severe doubt as to it not being corrupted in some way – have to be done but simply were not in the vast majority of cases?
The original Corman-Drosten et al paper has been criticised but Eurosurveillence looked at all the criticism and rejected them all.
The original paper had already been improved and updated.
The vast majority of virologists are happy with the current PCR test which is highly specific for SARS-CoV-2.
The main issue is the safety protocols at mass testing labs to avoid potential contamination.
I 100% agree with you here, that the input data is absolute bunk, however that is the PCR positive metric with which they have padded their figures and manufactured this house of cards so it is only right in my humble opinion that people on our side of the fence use their own data and metrics to debunk the bullshit, especially around the vaccine. Sure, it’s playing a bit of make believe as far as real science goes but it has levelled the playing field somewhat.
It’s Efficacy now matches the likelihood of me getting one.
An observation. According to ourworldindata, for the 60-69 age range (I pick that because I’m in the middle), in 2015 (the last year shown) the death rate is about 20 per thousand. The PHE data is for 28 days, so the all-case deaths would be about 1.5 per thousand, or 150 per 100,000. The unvaccinated rate from the PHE data is 23 per 100,000, ie., about 15% of the normal deal rate.
I’v made this point before, the excess mortality rate is nothing unusual, so I’d take a bet that that even if the vaccines are “saving” people from C19, they die of something else at the normal rate, ie., C19 has just displaced other respiratory infections.
Leave off ‘excess’ – a term that is a waste of space. The overall mortality rate is nothing to write home about, and that has always been the case. It’s a foundational issue that often gets lost in arguments over detail.
The title of the the website “Fact Check” is misinformation. They’re checking opinions and interpretations. The data stands as the closest thing to fact we have.
It seems ‘unarguable’ to use a Ferguson phrase that cases are higher in the vaccinated but it’s also clear from the table that less of the vaccinated are going to hospital or dying and that’s what matters
Fewer, not less.
Is it true that anyone dying within 14 days of the vaccination is treated as unvaccinated in the data? That would skew the data considerably, wouldn’t you think?
Their explanations might hold water, except:
The results from the PHE vaccine surveillance report show a trend, and it is moving in one direction (except for <18 year olds, presumably associated with low vaccine rollout other than to the most very vulnerable).
I am reposting this link from last night to ensure it gets publicised. Please spread this info.
I would like to encourage everyone to look at this link, to the conference with Viviane Fisher from the Corona Committee.
https://odysee.com/@en:a5/PK_Tot-durch-Impfung_english:a
The part on the vaccine contents starts at about 1.27.
At 1.42 there is a presentation from an Austrian surgeon with many slides and film of objects in these vaccines.
It goes into proper medical detail on what is in these “vaccines”
There are slides which show metallic objects moving in the “vaccines”. The reflective and synthetic ingredients are there for some other purpose and must come from military technology. It suggests to me that the “mad” theories about transhumanism could have merit, as some of these objects are clearly engineered nanobot type objects.
There is a good presentation from a German surgeon who is working with a group of international doctors to investigate and publicise this.
With the evidence in front of us of clear criminal intent there is no way anyone can now allow the vax deployment to children.
The medical team also used controls in the form of conventional vaccines.
No normal vaccine contains these synthetic objects.
Could just be piss poor rushed production as the “vaxx” companies roll around in billions of dollar notes and no regulation.
This morning I heard a child at a neighbouring school felt ill after the vaccine and was taken to the gymnasium where they subsequently collapsed (I am in Yorkshire). I am not sure how the child is, I sincerely hope it is nothing too serious. As a parent whose child will get this vax over my dead body, I cannot for the life of me fathom how parents are going along with this. It feels like game of Russian Roulette.
I am certain that more stories such as this will be circulating within days. Of course, it will be explained as demonstrating the need to vaccinate all children because covid can still seriously affect their health. The vaccine is 100% safe and all talk of adverse effects are deliberate misinformation.
Are you reading my mind or am I reading yours?
Syncope (fainting) was mentioned in a CDC presentation back in June: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2021-06/03-COVID-Shimabukuro-508.pdf (p.13) as being 17% of the adverse effects reported to VAERS for Pfizer age 12-15
It’s mind boggling isn’t it – one can only wonder at how they’ve arrived at a place where they’re prepared to risk their child’s life in this way. It almost certainly isn’t anything they’ve directly experienced… just the powers of propaganda and persuasion. We’re not even engaging with the programme – kids will be off school when it’s happening. They shouldn’t have to witness other children going in for the roulette.
They go along with it because they are too damn lazy to do any research. If the government says it’s ok, then it must be.
The funny thing about that FF site is that when I visit, and read one of their wet pieces on some poor sod’s work, and realise that the FF argument doesn’t sound right, I often go off and read that poor sod’s work on the original posting. I’m sure lots of others do the same. Maybe it’s the pieces I choose to read, but I’ve never ended up agreeing with FF.
So take heart, Will. Your pieces have been getting under their skin. You’ve probably also contributed to some additional readers here.
Keep up the good work.
I can’t help thinking there’s something dodgy about that site though. They claim to be ‘fact checkers’ but some of their pieces are so poorly researched and presented that they end up giving further credibility to the piece they’re seeking to undermine.
Another interesting point about FF is that they have an address on the Mall. That has of course to do with being round the corner from Whitehall (ie if the government don’t want to leave a paper trail) but rather a pricey piece of real estate for checking facts.
They share a building with the Institute for Government and The Privy Council Office. It’s a state propaganda body.
Thanks for that.
That they are called ‘fact checkers’ is purely to give the veneer of credibility, the illusion that they are some kind of impartial organisation only interested in pursuing truth. A bit like ‘Black Lives Matter’, if you give yourself a name that sounds sufficiently well meaning you can get away with all manner of bullshit apparently. So, in the same way that when you say you don’t support BLM people can say “wait what, so you don’t think black lives matter then?”, when you point out that sites such as FF are full of shit people will be like ‘hang on a minute, you’re disagreeing with the fact-checkers!? It’s their JOB to tell the truth”. When in reality we all know these sites and their authors are bought and paid for by Facebook, Gates Foundation etc. It’s pure Ministry of Truth, and for me one of the most insidious elements of the propaganda campaign.
Thanks for confirming what I sussed some 15 months ago when Mike Yeadon’s stuff was being rubbished by the same outfit, (FF). Accepting Mike Yeadon’s credentials and published information prompted me to ‘fact-check’ the fact-checkers. Bought and paid for shills to toe the party line was the conclusion.
Sadly, such is the effectiveness of the SAGE Psyops outfit, folk still refuse to see through this nonsense. “There are none so blind——.”
Agreed, they tend to leave one thinking “is this the best they can do?”. The site is mainly to give The Team some references to link to. They know 80% of the faithful won’t even click the link, and 99% won’t actually read FF’s own sources or do further research to get some context.