I was pointed recently to a study from Sweden which looks at all-cause death rates by vaccination status – something very few studies do. Published in July, it compares all-cause mortality in those who had three and those who had four vaccine doses among both over-80s and care home residents in Sweden.
The results are, to be blunt, incredible, which is to say, they’re not credible. They purport to show that compared to three doses, a fourth vaccine dose reduces all-cause mortality by a massive 71% in the over-80s and 39% in care home residents during the first two months after inoculation. Let me say that again: the study is claiming that in the over-80s a fourth vaccine dose cuts deaths from all causes (heart disease, dementia, cancer etc., as well as Covid) by 71%, i.e., over two thirds. If true, the vaccine is truly a wonder drug.
Let’s take a closer look at why these are not credible figures. (If you want to skip the maths, go straight to the paragraph that starts “To repeat”.)
According to the latest report from the UKHSA, vaccine effectiveness (VE) in over-50s against death with Omicron is estimated as:
- Dose 2 at 40+ weeks: 52%
- Dose 3 at 2-4 weeks: 85%
- Dose 3 at 15-19 weeks: 75%
- Dose 3 at 25-39 weeks: 63%
For our calculations we need to make a couple of assumptions; I’ll explain why I think they’re fair. First, we need to assume that these figures for the third dose will be very similar for the fourth dose. This is likely to be correct as we can see that the third dose is declining to a similar level as the second dose over a similar time period, so the next dose will likely behave similarly. Second, since in Sweden fourth doses were stipulated to be given at least four months after the third dose, we will assume that three-dosers during the study period are in the 15-19 week category, i.e., they have a VE against Covid death of 75%. We will also assume the VE for four-dosers against death in the immediate post-jab period is 85%, since that is what it was for the third dose.
This allows us to calculate that the fourth dose cuts Covid deaths in the over-50s by 40% compared to dose 3. (This is because dose 3 cuts deaths to 0.25 of their unvaccinated level, dose 4 cuts them to 0.15 of that level, and 0.15 is 40% less than 0.25.) I note that UKHSA actually gives direct VE estimates for dose 4 versus dose 3 against hospitalisation, and these indicate our estimates against Covid death look about right. Of course, this all assumes that UKHSA VE estimates are accurate; in reality, as they’re from a Government agency they’re probably skewed towards being supportive of the vaccines, so we can assume our calculations here are conservative estimates which grant a higher VE than may be the case in reality.
Next, ONS data show that in the pre-vaccine and pre-Omicron era (when there was little natural immunity) around 40% of total deaths during Covid waves were Covid deaths (e.g. the proportion was 37% Covid deaths in April 2020 and 46% in January 2021). I’m using figures for deaths with Covid rather than from Covid for consistency with the UKHSA VE estimates.
We’ve seen that three doses are 75% effective against Covid death, so this cuts the number of Covid deaths in the three-dose population down to 10% of the original number of deaths. If we assume Omicron is half as lethal and taking into account the reduction to the overall number of deaths, this leaves Covid deaths making up around 8% of all deaths in three-dosers during Omicron waves. (This is not far off the observed figure of 12% of deaths in January 2022 in England being Covid deaths, which also includes the unvaccinated.)
Since we’ve calculated that dose 4 prevents 40% of these deaths in three-dosers, we can now calculate that dose 4 reduces the total number of deaths (from all causes) in four-dosers by around 3% (40% of 8%). Assuming it has no effect on the rest of the deaths from other causes, this is a VE against all-cause mortality of 3%.
How then can the Swedish study claim that a fourth dose (compared to three doses) reduces all-cause mortality by 71% in the over-80s and 39% in care home residents during the first two months after vaccination?
To repeat: on UKHSA data, a booster dose during Omicron reduced Covid deaths in the over-50s by 40%, which translates to a reduction in all-cause deaths of just 3% (because Covid deaths make up just 8% of the overall deaths in the three-dosers). Yet the Swedish study finds a reduction in all-cause deaths in the over-80s of 71% and in care home residents of 39%. How can 3% in over-50s in England become 71% in over-80s in Sweden?
There’s clearly something wrong here. A vaccine booster which reduces Covid deaths by 40% at most cannot reduce all-cause mortality by 71% when Covid deaths make up such a small portion of overall deaths. It would imply that the vaccine booster is massively cutting deaths from all causes, including heart deaths, dementia deaths, cancer deaths and so on, even more than it’s cutting Covid deaths. There’s no evidence of this at all. The opposite in fact: Covid waves since Delta have been accompanied by significant numbers of excess non-Covid deaths, many of which in England at least are in the over-75s age group, the cohort which received a fourth vaccine dose in spring. (It’s true that Sweden didn’t have excess deaths during the study period, but neither did it have a Covid wave – it skipped the BA.2 wave somehow – and like other countries it has had excess non-Covid deaths during recent Covid waves.)
So the study’s claim that deaths among fourth-dosers are lower by over two thirds doesn’t stack up at all. The authors note: “Although third-dose recipients had similar baseline characteristics as fourth-dose recipients, some third-dose recipients likely did not receive the fourth dose because of deteriorating health that was not captured by the baseline characteristics.” Could this ‘healthy vaccinee’ effect explain it? It’s hard to tell; it’s an awfully large effect. Have the researchers somehow excluded all those most likely to die in the four-dose group and included all those most likely to die in the three-dose group?
Either way, this study clearly cannot be relied on to tell us anything about the effect of vaccination on all-cause mortality. Which is a shame, as I had hoped that once researchers turned their attention to this question we would quickly get some answers on the overall benefits of the vaccines. Instead, it appears that the answers we get make no sense at all.
It only goes to show that what we need is the full data – mortality data broken down by cause, age group, vaccination status, prior infection status and underlying conditions, individualised as far as is consistent with anonymity – released so that it can be analysed properly, and obviously anomalous results like this Swedish study avoided.
Stop Press: An Emeritus Professor of epidemiology from the U.S. has got in touch to say he fully agrees with this critique, and adds:
1. Although they estimated VE at days 7-60, the K-M curves [the chart above] are shown since day 1. They diverge at the very beginning! We don’t expect any beneficial effect so quickly. That’s clear evidence for the ‘healthy vaccinee’ effect, i.e., clear evidence of confounding.
2. K-M curves are unadjusted, of course, but the data in the tables allow us to see what adjustment did. Comparing unadjusted VE (which can be computed by hand from the rates) to partially adjusted and then to ‘fully adjusted’, it seems that we observe some strengthening of the ‘beneficial effect’ following adjustment. That implies negative confounding i.e., fourth dose recipients were sicker to begin with, not healthier, so we didn’t see the ‘true benefit’ before adjustment. But I don’t think there was anywhere preferential vaccination of elderly or care home residents in worse mental or physical state. If anything, it was the opposite.
So, yes. Another useless study and another absurd claim.
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excellent idea. The basis should be the return of formal debating in which people have to propose motions with which they may disagree and the result judged dispassionately, not by a vote on the floor but by teachers marking the structure of the arguments. Not easy I know but it’s a great challenge.
Teachers marking? I assume you haven’t met many teachers!
Are teachers the ‘professionals’ for whom the Education Secretary is seeking a 9% pay rise? Those lily livered pond life who were happily complicit in denying a proper education to our children, driven by their unions who are now threatening to strike?
They need to have their salaries reduced, not enhanced and their right to strike withdrawn.
Unprincipled bastards
It’s going to be a bit of an effort when you get the full idea of what TEACHERS think the kids should be taught.
Appalling must watch video from an Irish teaching union
https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1542463974117183488
With thanks to Ivor Cummins
I hesitated to click on this because I knew it would infuriate me, but I did. Unbelievable.
When I was 7 or 8 I identified as a boy. I worse boys clothes, had a boys hair cut, climbed trees and skinned my knees and even belonged to the local cub group because it was run by my mother and it was more convenient for her to take me with her. I despised brownies as sissies. Guess what? I was a tomboy, and like most other tomboys I grew out of it at puberty. God knows what would have happened to me these days! Come to think of it, tomboy is a word you don’t hear now either. (Probably deemed offensive or something)
Years ago, before I mistrusted the BBC, the author Val McDermid, (who I dislike due to her stance on Independence, masks, vaccines etc), made this point beautifully……basically, as a girl she was a tomboy, preferring football and traditional “boy” pursuits. She later found herself attracted to her own sex and has always been in lesbian rather than heterosexual relationships.
AT NO POINT EVER felt that those childhood traits or sexual preferences signified she was the “wrong” gender, simply it was appropriate for boys OR girls to participate in those activities and sexual choices.
In other words; if a female can do ANYTHING she wishes to do as a female, and a man can do the same, where is the validity in the argument “I was born the wrong gender”?
It’s too subtle for the Trans brigade, who would simply and wrongly see @the old bat or Val McDermid climbing their respective trees as children and say, “Oh, look at that poor boy born into a girl’s body, better get that sorted out for them”
One of the most egregious things I’ve recently seen is also in this video. That’s the picture of this amorphous creature whose text says
I was born with the body of a boy but the brain of a girl.
Math is hard, let’s go shopping! anyone? If that’s not sexist, I don’t know what is. I’ve been socialised in the 1980s, ie, well before all these all men/ all women cliches were reintroduced (early 2000s in Germany) and shit like this makes my blood boil. By that time, we decidedly didn’t think it was chic to regard the often cited 50% of mankind as of the lower orders because of the sex difference and I refuse to start doing so just because this would be politically convenient for some people.
There’s a great episode of Little House on the Prairie, where the father, Charles Ingolls, wants to take Laura, his middle daughter, on a hunting expedition. His wife objects, saying it isn’t right for girls to do such things. Charles rejects her idea, stating that he’s sure she’ll grow into a wonderful woman. They go, and Laura saves the day when Charles injures himself, miles from anywhere, with his own gun.
Obviously, these episodes were aired before the Woke Brigade got their teeth into everything.
These watermelon-shaped beings are very strange. What planet to they live on?
This is also very scary
wwwDOTyoutubeDOTcom/watch?v=XA07ta2tJpQ
Neither politicians nor large employers are interested in people able to and courageous enough to engage in sceptical thinking.
The whole point of children’s education now is to turn them into semi-skilled obedient sheep who know their place and keep their mouths shut.
“The whole point of children’s education now is to turn them into semi-skilled obedient sheep who know their place and keep their mouths shut.”
Bang on the nail but the people pushing this are the Davos Deviants. The politicians are just under orders.
The DD’s want a wholly compliant and sheep-like populace because they require SLAVES not sentient, questioning human beings.
I fear some people have yet to perceive the depth of evil being planned – depopulation and enslavement for the survivors. Some run of the mill civil servants and politicians might be given a small sincere, a kapo type position while they have a use, but after that they will be off to the knackers yard.
Apologies – bloody predictive- – ‘sincere’ was of course sinecure.
Take ’em out and teach them at home.
Education is now massively politicised
Health the same.
Best avoid schools. And the NHS.
The problem is certainly one of trusting in authority/the state. In 2003, unlike many sensible British people, I swallowed the WMD nonsense just because I did not believe a government would tell such blatant lies – truth was finally turned on its head in with the Hutton report. Obviously Gilligan told the truth and Blair lied over Dr Kelly and Hutton used technical technical arguments to twist the results – the Chairman and Director General resigned and the BBC was captured, and by degrees most of the mainstream have been swallowed up since. I guess by now the lies are so all enveloping and pervasive that it is simply easier to give up. I suppose it is the first circle of the metaverse.
Hallelujah! What a brilliant sensible idea. Some here may well have seen the attached feature extracted from The Light newspaper issue 21 p23. The kids are the future of the human race, god help us all if free / critical thinking gets completely wiped out.
They taught us some complete twaddle at school – things that turned out to just not be true at all.
The biggest whopper I can think of was this notion that we “the people” are governed by consent and that we have inalienable rights (granted to us by “God”).
It turns out we don’t and that these “rights” are granted to us by the government who can take them away from us whenever they feel like it (“for the greater good”) – even for the most stupidest reasons (like because someone decided to rebrand the flu for example)
It also turns out that the government basically owns our kids because we were stupid enough to “register” them with the government.
I’m dreading my daughters going to school. I suppose I’ll have to try and teach them that many of the pointless things they are learning are “just pretend” and that they should “just write the answers the teacher wants regardless of if they are actually true or not”. I’d encourage them to not believe anything school tells them unless they can prove it themselves. BUT they must never let on to the school that they are doing this.