We’re publishing a guest post by our in-house doctor today looking at the latest ICNARC data. This is the weekly audit of NHS ICUs. It only covers the period up to November 14th, but suggests that unvaccinated Covid patients in ICU are not placing an unmanageable strain on the NHS, as some health professionals have claimed. On the contrary, as of November 15th, there were only 400 unvaccinated Covid patients in ICUs across the whole of NHS England and they were outnumbered by vaccinated patients.
Today the Prime Minister will be making a decision on further measures to limit social interactions by British citizens. Information leaked from SAGE appear to indicate the ‘scientific advisers’ to the Government are pushing him to reinstitute more aggressive social controls in an effort to control the virus.
As Monday and Tuesday (the 27th and the 28th) are bank holidays, there will be no release of Covid related data on the NHS website. Therefore, the public will be able to see even less information than usual about the quantifiable evidence on which their liberty is being curtailed.
On Christmas Eve, the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) released an updated weekly report containing useful new information. Readers may recall that until recently, ICNARC had not produced an audit of vaccination status in ICUs. We now have data up to November 15th and this week a more granular analysis has been published. The link to the report is here and the relevant pages are 44-48.
I urge readers to examine this report for themselves in tandem with my analysis as a guide to interpretation. There has been so much misinformation around vaccines and severe Covid on both sides of the argument that a high-quality ICNARC audit is invaluable in assessing quantifiable known facts about the situation.
Readers should note that all patients included in this audit were suffering from the Delta variant. The time period ends on November 15th, well before Omicron became established in the U.K. Therefore, the debate around whether Omicron is more or less severe than Delta is irrelevant for the purposes of this commentary.
Figure 27 on page 46 shows the changing proportions of vaccinated people in ICU units between May and November compared to vaccination status in the general U.K. population. Over this period vaccination uptake increased in the community from around 60% partially or double vaccinated in May to over 80% double vaccinated in November.
In May, 35% of the population were unvaccinated but 75% of ICU patients came from this cohort. By November about 15% of the population were unvaccinated but they accounted for 48% of the ICU population. The inference is that the risk of contracting severe Covid is substantially higher in the unvaccinated population than the vaccinated. Note there is no more recent data than November 15th, so we don’t have any evidence that the percentage of unvaccinated Covid patients in ICUs has increased since the Omicron variant hit.
Figure 28 on page 47 is interesting. It shows that London is significantly different to the rest of the U.K. in respect of unvaccinated admissions to ICU. In summary, London has a consistently higher percentage of unvaccinated patients in ICU compared to the rest of the U.K. – in November about 60% of London ICU Covid patients were unvaccinated compared to a range in the rest of the U.K. of between 40 and 50%. This probably reflects a lower vaccine uptake in the capital compared to the rest of the U.K. I will return to this point later.
Table 16 on page 48 of the report is the most revealing new information. It provides a detailed analysis of vaccination status mapped to important demographic and clinical data around disease severity. I will take some time to unpick it for benefit of slightly nerdy ‘statos’ like myself!
The first observation is that unvaccinated patients on ICU tend to be younger than the double vaccinated (a mean age of 49 versus 65). There was a wider interquartile range in the unvaccinated than the vaccinated groups – this means that almost all of the patients in ICU under 40 were unvaccinated. There tended to be more females in the unvaccinated group (42% vs 33%).
Blacks, Asians and other ethnic minorities made up 33% of the unvaccinated cohort, but only 14% of the vaccinated group. This probably reflects lower vaccination uptake in these communities compared to the ethnically white British segment of the U.K. population.
Turning to socio-economic status (SES), there was a gradient observed in the two groups, with 64% of the unvaccinated group deriving from SES classes four and five compared to 48.4% in the vaccinated group. Again, this may reflect lower vaccine uptake in lower SES groups in the community.
The differences in physiological status are the most interesting data. In aggregate, vaccinated ICU patients were more likely to have serious comorbidities or vulnerabilities than unvaccinated patients. About 50% of the vaccinated patient group had serious pre-existing health conditions compared to 12.3% in the unvaccinated group.
Interestingly, the body mass indices were much the same in both groups. (I had expected the unvaccinated group to be fatter than the vaccinated, but this was not the case.) It was also interesting to see the physiological severity as measured by the requirement for early ventilation and the gas exchange ratios were the same across all groups. Finally, there was a significant group of pregnant or recently pregnant women in the unvaccinated cohort, not seen in the vaccinated group – this may reflect the age differences between the two groups.
So, in summary, my assessment of this information is as follows:
- Unvaccinated patients represented about half of patients in ICU compared to about 15% of the general population. Therefore, the risk of ICU admission in the unvaccinated is higher than the vaccinated population.
- Unvaccinated patients in ICU tend to be younger and healthier (before admission) than their vaccinated counterparts, half of whom were significantly unwell before contracting Covid.
- Unfortunately, ICNARC have not yet provided information around mortality rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients. I think it is probably reasonable to assume that unvaccinated patients, being generally younger and fitter than the vaccinated groups, are more likely to survive ICU.
- In quantitative terms, there were about 820 Covid patients in English ICUs in mid-November. By Christmas Eve this had fallen to 747. If 48% of patients are unvaccinated this represents about 400 unvaccinated ICU patients in England in November.
- London has a higher percentage of unvaccinated patients in ICU (60%) than the rest of the country. This may reflect skews to a younger demographic and a higher proportion of ethnic minorities, hence lower vaccine uptake in the capital.
- Reports in the media claiming that 90% of the ICU patients in London are unvaccinated are not supported by this audit – unless something has radically changed between November 15th and the end of December. My anecdotal information reports that there are some ICUs in London where the percentage of unvaccinated patients in ICU does approach 90%. These are hospitals in the East End and South East areas. My suspicion is that these higher rates are being extrapolated in the press as representative of the whole of the U.K. Actually, they are not even representative of the whole of London.
My final point goes to how this valuable information has been portrayed in the press. The ICNARC data provide good evidence of the protective effects of vaccination against Covid and the higher risk of being severely ill with Covid if one has not been vaccinated. Otherwise healthy patients who are unvaccinated are at higher risk of contracting severe Covid than their vaccinated peer group. However, the effect has been exaggerated by commentators in the mainstream media and the overall numbers are quite low (400 unvaccinated ICU patients in the whole of the U.K.).
— Jamie Jenkins (@statsjamie) December 23, 2021
BBC News at 6 – Video saying 100% on Covid ward unvaccinated. Fergus Walsh then says its 4 in 5 – contradicting the video.
Contributor from Intensive Care Society says 2/3 across people they asked.None match the published data of 48% pic.twitter.com/86ZA67UxBa
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Imagine calling a multibillionaire “courageous”. Get some sense. Musk is a shyster, and so is Marc Benioff, his fellow billionaire who owns Time.
Courageous downvoters – here’s an explainer for you about the world of the Daily Mail, including Mail Plus etc.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI
You know what they say, if you’re getting flak, you’re over the target. Musk is a grifter, clearly some people want to emulate the twat, drooling over his money.
A grifter? You mean like so many politicians who earn their money with backhanders all day long? I think Mr.Musk is a tad brighter and grifter is not a word I would use to describe him.
Billionaire. Bad ? There are bad one’s of course. There’s some bad people in my local estate so I hear.
Sorry I gave up all msm for Lent
I would highly recommend everyone do the same. Msm serves no purpose.
I gave up TV completely as well in May 2021 ……and cancelled my TV licence. Uplifting!
I don’t have a problem with Musk’s selection; I just have to wonder why billionaires all have such weird hair.
Maybe there’s something of the Peaky Blinders about them.
He certainly comes across as a somewhat eccentric person.
There it is again. So people who have been baying for pay back for the last two years now get a global billionaire on the books so to speak and do I hear a round of applause ? No we get “he’s eccentric”. Face palm.
Looks like good old Ellen has been throwing his money at troll service. Personally, I just think he’s a dickhead, nothing to do with his money.
Musk says he will allow his son to choose his own gender.
Where are social services when we need them? They should make his son a ward of court, foster him, and require Musk to take re-education classes if he wishes to apply to get him back.
Musk is a bit of a touchstone. Some people realise what’s happening when a drug-addled billionaire talks up garbage such as self-driving cars, is allowed by the real rulers (who aren’t in the limelight) to become what in most people’s terms is extremely rich, pulls a few cryptocurrency scams because he’s bought a section of the “cool youth” market, and ostentiously masturbates with large vehicles into space. Others fall for him because they’re too stupid to realise any of the above for what it is, even when it’s right in front of their faces. Seriously your life has to be very sad if you think it’s exciting to watch a billionaire disgrace himself and have a J Arthur.
“talks up garbage such as self-driving cars”
You know those already exist? Bloody handy too when you need to take a slurp of coffee on the motorway….I know it’s against the grain on here but I love my Tesla.
As for Musk, he’s the least offensive of the elite i can think of, but i’m no fan of any of them.
It is hard to find role models these days, Boris, Biden, Fauci, whitty, Gove, Hancock,harris. So many to choose from. You know what I mean.
I am a big fan of Mr Musk and very grateful for his presence.
Yes you are right. I would rather sit and watch the current UK and USA gov’ts make fools of themselves. Mr. musk just gets on with his ideas and work. He fights for his and his employees rights. Don’t you just hate when people do that.
Déjà vu.
Personally, I can’t get sycophantic over a billionaire. There should be no billionaires, it gives them to much power & privilege, ironically whether musk is a lockdown sceptic or not, he clearly has no influence on this matter, so I can’t see we’ve suffered 2 articles about him.
Because he gave Toby a tiny scrap of fleeting attention, is why. There’s no other reason needed.
So he must just be a “victim” just baying for attention ? Derogatory to say the least.
But this has been the issue all along. An “elite” of billionaires, medical experts and pharma bods clearly gained too much power and influence. That does not translate to “everything bad”. I do not live in the Manichean world that seems to exist exclusively in the comment sections of this site but almost never in the actual articles.
The introductory paragraph to this article is cringemakingly embarrassing.
The title is too.
If I ever write anything so bad, please can everyone (especially friends) line up and shout “Stop embarrassing yourself, you fucking wally!” at me. Thanks!
Maybe not so anti-socialist after all then
I don’t understand your logic?
It’s not the wealth I object to, it’s the power over fawning idiots like you that directly affects my freedom that I object to.
Perhaps you have ambitions? Mine is to be free, not rule others.
Why is he “eccentric” ? That used to describe moth eaten millionaires in old stately homes who go around wearing deer antlers on the head all day, lol.
Well, when someone points out that he can’t use your mini submarine to rescue some cavers who’ve been trapped underground by water and your response is to call that person a ‘paedo’, that qualifies as a bit eccentric, surely?
Where did he say this ?
https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musk-apologises-for-calling-british-cave-diver-a-paedo-11440370
The facts weren’t disputed in court. Musk claimed in court that it had been a “JDart”, where an intended jokey tweet had been misinterpreted by the recipient, and he had immediately deleted it. The US jury took the view that that Musk’s Tweet had been a spontaneous response to the previous Twitter exchanges, and that its immediate deletion had limited the reputational damage that it had done.
Oh he qualifies alright. As a Tesla owner I’ve followed his Twitter feed for a while and he’s a proper nut job.
Yeah – fuck that shit.
https://elonmuskneuralink.com/the-neuralink-brain-chip-elon-musk-neuralink/
So this automatically makes Elon “bad” ? In fact is this tech inherently bad ? Like any tech it depends on whose using it. I’ve seen all the Technocracy and “reset” conspiracy theories. They do a good job in their own way but they are so inherently DARK. Sometimes I wonder if they’re Luddites. They never posit a world where this tech is in the hands of the good guys.
Why are you exerting so much energy defending him?
Elon is unstable. Much like Oswald Mosley. He could flip in any direction and any time. As such he is a potentially dangerous buffoon.
“rare”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10321397/Christian-Eriksens-Inter-Milan-contract-terminated-mutual-consent.html
I might be more inclined to agree if his opposition to lockdowns had actually had some sort of noticeable effect in changing policy.
As it stands, unless I’m missing something, he has accomplished nothing of substance and so I’m not quite sure whether his “courage” is any greater, any more consequential or any more inspiring to others than the courage of, say, the lady who was convicted this week for protesting in London.
I think going against the law/rules in your country as a business is a little brave. He took a risk that his business would suffer through his personal exploits. He kept his staff in work whilst others risked closing their businesses not knowing if there would be a business to come back to. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a big fan or anything, but anyone with his worldwide image making a stand is better than no one doing it, regardless as to his reasons.
He accomplished nothing. He did nothing significant to protest or lobby the state of California, where he was based, against lockdowns and mandates. Instead he packed up his company and buggered off to Texas, purely out of his business’ interest and bottom line. He’s not wrong to want to do so, but don’t sugar coat it as “standing up to tyranny” like another previous article did.
Isn’t this one of those WGAS articles?
Too many people think these characters and these magazines are important. They’re not outside the Bubble.
Over on YouTube, Thunderf00t (with 1M Subscribers) has utterly debunked Musk’s crazy projects – https://www.youtube.com/c/Thunderf00t/search?query=musk
While he might have been against lockdowns, I feel he is still a potentially dangerous buffoon, who would make men into robots.
The same Musk who pushes Universal Basic Income?
The same Musk who wants to send millions of satellites into space for the global surveillance grid? (In co operation with Bill Gates)
The same Musk who is developing brain implants to connect people’s physical bodies (and minds?) to IoT?
The same Musk whose cars and tunnel boring company is building the “smart cities”?
His lockdown skepticism is just theatre. At his core he is one of the oligarchs building the totalitarian hell in this world.
We desperately needed Mr Musk’s support. He recently was interviewed by a WSJ jounalist and his responses to her questions were a breath of fresh air. Musk is highly intelligent, but wisely knows his limits and admits that.
A Musk/DeSantis ticket in 2024 would be amazing. We can hope.