I recently reported on a Swedish study which looked at all-cause death rates by vaccination status. It purported to show that compared to three doses, a fourth vaccine dose reduced all-cause mortality in the Omicron waves by an absurdly high 71% in the over-80s and 39% in care home residents during the first two months after inoculation. I pointed out this made no sense as we can only expect the vaccine to reduce Covid deaths, not deaths from other causes, and Covid deaths during the Omicron waves only made up around 8% of total deaths among the triple-dosed. Since even on official data a fourth dose would only cut Covid deaths by less than half compared to a third dose, this means we would expect a drop in total deaths of at most 3%, not 70%.
A second study on all-cause mortality by vaccination status has been brought to my attention. (These are currently the only two I am aware of; there may be others but they are yet to cross my radar.) This study, published in Vaccines in July, is from Hungary and focuses on spring and summer 2021 as the vaccines were rolled out and the country experienced its Alpha wave. (The study refers to this as the ‘third wave’, but Hungary’s ‘first wave’ in spring 2020 was largely a non-event and this was the country’s second wave of excess deaths, the first occurring in autumn 2020.) The study estimates vaccine effectiveness against all-cause mortality to be 49-75% during this wave, depending on vaccine type. Such figures are still way beyond what is believable, even allowing for the fact that this is comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated (rather than the single-boosted) and is shortly after vaccination and is pre-Omicron, as it still implies that the vaccine is considerably reducing not just Covid deaths but deaths from other causes (heart attacks, cancer, dementia etc.) as well. So what’s gone wrong this time?
The chart above shows the study period. It is split into two parts, an epidemic period (light grey) during the second half of the Alpha wave, starting at peak deaths, and a non-epidemic period (dark grey) starting shortly afterwards when there were almost zero reported Covid deaths. This sensible split should allow the researchers to calibrate their vaccine effectiveness estimates by taking the mortality rates during the non-epidemic period as a baseline.
Below are two key charts showing the crude (unadjusted) survival rates in each cohort, depending on vaccine status or type. The top chart is for the non-epidemic period, so should show the normal background rate of deaths in each cohort, and the bottom one is for the epidemic period, so should show deaths elevated by the Covid wave.
Note that the study states that it excludes the partially vaccinated, defined as those who have received one dose and are fewer than seven days after their second dose. Unvaccinated here means no doses and vaccinated means ‘fully vaccinated’ i.e., seven days after the second dose. This means any deaths between the first dose and seven days after the second dose will not be included. It appears that individuals change cohorts as they receive doses during the study period, though how the researchers have handled this is not always clear.
A look at these charts reveals some striking inconsistencies. Notice in the non-epidemic chart (top), the red unvaccinated line is the lowest (along with the yellow Moderna line). This means the unvaccinated cohort has the highest death rate (because the lowest survival rate). But if we look at the characteristics of the cohorts in the supplementary appendix (Table S3) we find that the unvaccinated are around eight to nine years younger than the vaccinated, both across all vaccinated (45.5 vs 53.6 years) and among those vaccinated with Moderna (54.5 years) and Pfizer (53.8 years). The rates of comorbidities are also half the level or below in the unvaccinated compared to the vaccinated (e.g. heart disease 1.5% vs 3.1%, cancer 1.3% vs 3.5%). Why, then, is the mortality rate higher in a younger, healthier cohort?
The same point can be made in another way by noting that 39% of the deaths in the non-epidemic period (6,548 of 16,853) are attributed to the unvaccinated, who make up 31% of the study population, while 61% of the deaths are attributed to the 69% of the population that is vaccinated (see Table 3). Why is the younger, healthier cohort over-represented in the deaths? Similarly, 0.29% of the unvaccinated cohort died in the non-epidemic period versus 0.21% of the vaccinated. These rates make no sense. We can get a sense of how high the death rate in the unvaccinated is by considering that in Hungary around 1.6% of the adult population typically dies each year (130,000 of 8.2 million), so in this 55 day period you’d expect a maximum of 0.24% of the population to die – and since this is during summer it should be lower still (deaths are around 20% lower in summer than winter). Yet 0.29% of the unvaccinated died – at least 20% more than would be expected. Remember, this is a non-epidemic period when Covid deaths were near zero. Why is the death rate in the unvaccinated at least 20% higher than the expected background rate, while the vaccinated death rate is below it (0.21% vs 0.24%), when the unvaccinated are the younger and healthier portion of the population?
The authors briefly acknowledge this issue in the conclusion, referring to the “huge variability of survival across cohorts by COVID-19 vaccination status during a period when the COVID-19 epidemic was not active, meaning the vaccine could not exert a protective effect”, and accepting that the observed differences “were not attributable to the sociodemographic characteristics of patients, the presence of the most prevalent underlying diseases, or the structural characteristics of [general practitioners] providing care for patients”. They do not attempt to explain the discrepancies however or properly address the huge impact these will have on their results. Indeed, they adjust their results for a ‘healthy vaccinee effect’, which on their data is the opposite of the reality, making the problem even worse. Since the unvaccinated are used as the baseline to estimate vaccine effectiveness, and the mortality rate in the unvaccinated is inexplicably high, this problem obviously nullifies any VE estimates in the study.
Further problems can be seen by superimposing the two charts on top of each other (noting the different scale on the axes) to allow easy comparison by eye of the mortality rates in the epidemic and non-epidemic periods.
It can be a little tricky to see what’s going on in this composite image, but focusing on the blue Pfizer lines (the lower pair of blue lines), you can see that the two lines coincide for about 25 days before the death rate in the epidemic period deviates. This implies that the Pfizer cohort during the first 25 days of the epidemic period had the same death rate as in the first 25 days of the non-epidemic period. Yet as we have seen, the epidemic period begins with the peak of Covid deaths, meaning the Pfizer death rate should begin high and then ease off. Instead it begins at a ‘normal’ rate and then increases – the opposite. In addition, note that the epidemic-period Pfizer cohort is older (57.9 years vs 53.8 years) and has more comorbidities than the non-epidemic-period Pfizer cohort (this v is because more younger people are vaccinated by the later, non-epidemic period), so the crude death rate in the epidemic period should be higher still. Yet the death rates are the same for 25 days, during the peak of the Covid wave.
Likewise, look at the yellow Moderna lines: the death rate starts out lower in the epidemic period than the non-epidemic period and only goes above it after 50 days, despite it beginning at the peak of a Covid wave (the epidemic line is the slightly thicker, fainter line). With AstraZeneca too (the brown lines), the death rate in the epidemic period is much lower throughout than in the non-epidemic period. It’s also unclear why the non-epidemic death rate in the AstraZeneca cohort is so much lower than for Pfizer or Moderna when it has a very similar average age and rate of comorbidities.
None of these death rates makes sense: the unvaccinated rate in the non-epidemic period is much too high and the vaccinated rates in the epidemic period appear much too low. No wonder the study comes up with such crazy high estimates of vaccine effectiveness.
One of the findings that might be worth taking note of is that the curves for both Pfizer and Moderna in the epidemic period bend sharply downwards in the second half, indicating an accelerating death rate. This is despite the period beginning at peak Covid deaths, which then ease off. Given all the other unexplained anomalies in these data this may well be just one more. However, if there is any validity to the underlying data, it may indicate an alarmingly accelerating mortality rate among the mRNA vaccinated cohorts, even as Covid deaths ease.
Once again, I am left disappointed. I had hoped that studies of all-cause mortality by vaccination status would be key to evaluating the overall risks and benefits of the vaccines. However, both this study and the Swedish one have produced nonsensical results with data that have no clear correspondence to reality.
The current study claims at one point that “there are 15 countries using routine all-cause mortality by vaccination monitoring”. This intrigued me – I was not aware of any countries doing this, except for the U.K. ONS, whose data have serious issues that make them unreliable. However, following the reference to the webpage brought up an “Our World in Data” page which did not in fact list any countries providing these data. Another disappointment.
All-cause deaths data by vaccination status should provide us with crucial insights into the benefits and harms of the vaccines. Yet, so far, very few researchers have looked at these data at all, and where they have, the results have not passed the reality test and have failed to live up to the promise. The wait continues.
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Joel Smalley’s far superior, evidence-based version of the Covid enquiry;
”The official UK Covid-19 Inquiry has no deadline and will probably run to a cost of over £200 million
1. It will serve absolutely no useful purpose because it is asking the wrong questions to the wrong people. It will result in a load of ill-informed opinions (always worthless) and ignore the evidence. So, here is my unofficial inquiry. It asks no questions of anyone and is completely unopinionated, relying entirely on evidence derived from official UK public data.”
https://metatron.substack.com/p/the-unofficial-uk-covid-19-inquiry
Enquiries.. just like voting.. would be banned if they worked..
Yes, I seem to remember hearing Bliar advised Rebekah Brooks to embrace enquiries because you get to frame the debate, limit the negative exposure and release the report during high summer when everyone is on holiday.
I can write the official enquiry conclusion right now and save £200m:
Lives could have been saved by locking down earlier, harder, and longer. Sweden and Florida do not exist. Well meaning but flawed politicians like Hancock should not be in charge of future lockdown decisions which should instead be outsourced to the experts (i.e. unelected technocrats) at the WHO.
Fab stuff from Joel Smalley. When sense is absent, nonsense will prevail. Is there really no one with common sense left in a position of authority any longer? Are they really so dense, myopic, ignorant, corrupt, bought off, and unable to see beyond a limited scope and their own already conjured up opinions? It would seem so. Official inquiries, such as this, are so obviously not going to work. It’ll be a whitewash and we’ll be told that all is done and dusted (under the carpet).
Thanks for the link Mogs – erudite, succinct, faultless and saves a fortune.
Re:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/16/brexit-helped-uk-prepare-covid-pandemic-government-argue/
Paywall so unread and all the tips to breach paywalls never work for me.
As far as I am aware, the U.K. had a perfectly reasonable and long-standing pandemic preparedness plan / strategy that was cast aside when the scamdemic hit the U.K. shores in 2020.
Have you tried copying the web address (URL) for the article into the box on the home page of the site below?
https://archive.is
Thank you so much. It worked!
You are welcome…
Pressing ‘Esc’ button just as it begins to load also works.
I’ve tried this in the past but I think I’m just not quick enough to stop the page loading and the paywall appearing. After several failed attempts, I get annoyed with myself.
Are we not upset by the murderous events in Nottingham ??
Yes, there seems to be a dearth of information / reporting about that shocking event.
Is it due to contempt of court laws that heavily restrict what media can report before a trial?
“Is it due to contempt of court laws that heavily restrict what media can report before a trial?”
No. What is keeping MSM zippered is the fact that the perp was a black, Muslim, illegal immigrant with a history of violent offences who was known to the security services.
I suspect you are right.
I thought the msm hated muslims as they’re not lgbtqwerty compliant…
Thank you for drawing attention to the Spiked podcast. The only think that surprised me was Matthew Good man’s reference to institutions being captured and the focus that might be given to that after 2024 elections in the USA and UK.
I was surprised because I for one have been complaining of political capture for years. It was brought to my attention very powerfully when I attended secondary schools before 2016 to debate our EU membership. Most of them promoted EU membership and exuded a strong left wing bias which was not even concealed.
my children told me that at University they were not comfortable speaking about their father’s euro scepticism and activism. My wife kept her opinions very much to herself when working at the BBC.
Latest video from Tucker Carlson…I enjoyed this one….and I learned that the banner underneath a news story is called a Chyron! LOL!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDz-k1kHUQ8
Yes, my first freelance job in London was for an American series being produced in the UK, because of that era’s US writers’ strike. I had to learn loads of new terminology. It also took ages to get back to thinking about UK frame rates after spending half a year using NTSC!!
So is Pluto’s moon! sorry I digress
Close..but no cigar..dinger….the moon is called Charon…. the mythological ferryman who carried souls across the river Acheron, one of the five mythical rivers that surrounded Pluto’s underworld.
The banner is a Chyron pronounced (Ki Ron ) LOL!!
Oh well! I did noticed the spelling was difference but wasn’t reckoning that anyone would check up on it! Your too clever by half sir/madam/him/Her etc etc
Excellent interview from the very good Jermwarfare
https://jermwarfare.com/conversations/a-beginners-guide-to-vaccines-and-germ-theory
Roman Bystrianyk co-authored Dissolving Illusions with Suzanne Humphries.
It challenges the conventional narrative about the role of vaccines in public health, arguing that they have not been responsible for the decline in infectious diseases, and that they might actually have contributed to illness.
“Brexit helped U.K. prepare for the pandemic, Government will argue in COVID-19 Inquiry”
What the Hey as politics got to do with a microscopic organism! I’m sure that everyone who caught bubonic plague voted for someone or something, and it didn’t do them any good either!
“‘Case Zeroes’ in world did not come from WIV”
Of course not, it came from whang Po who unfortunately eat a nice piece of undercooked bat cutlet!
“The novelist, poet and vicar has been appointed to the senior position in a move described by LGBT+ campaigners as a ‘beacon of hope’ “
A beacon to drive more real chirstians away from the church more like, Box ticking tw@ts!
“Garth Brooks opens inclusive bar with promise to sell Bud Light and make everyone feel ‘safe’”
Ho just F off Garth!
https://www.technocracy.news/technocrat-vision-for-the-future-of-food/
Some info on what Farmer Bill is up to.
Shouldn’t that be Pharma/Farmer Bill?
Yes. Good point.