We have provided numerous explanations (see here, and here) and videos (see here and here) explaining why a vaccine that is actually merely a placebo will inevitably appear to have high efficacy if there is a time delay after vaccination during which the participant is classified as ‘unvaccinated’.
Some people have claimed that the examples – using hypothetical data – are unrealistic and that, with different assumptions about the underlying infection rate, the illusion would not happen. Not true.
This example simulates a vaccine roll-out and efficacy evaluation which is essentially how all the 2021 observational studies of the Covid vaccines were conducted.
Assumptions:
- The entire population starts week 1 as unvaccinated and by week 14 about 90% of the population has received a single jab (note that we start with a population of one million but the efficacy results are exactly same irrespective of the starting population).
- The vaccination rollout starts with 1% of the unvaccinated population vaccinated in week 1 and peaks at 35% in week 8 falling back to 10% in each of the last three weeks.
- There is a constant weekly infection rate throughout the period (in the example below it is 2% but, as the video shows, the ‘efficacy’ numbers are exactly the same no matter what the fixed rate is).
- Any vaccinated person who becomes infected within the first two weeks of his or her vaccination is classified as unvaccinated (in fact, as can be seen here, the Office for National Statistics classifies a person as infected within the first three weeks of his or her vaccination as unvaccinated. And also note this is the case in Sweden).
The Excel model can be downloaded from here.
Based on these assumptions, we find that a placebo is 86% ‘effective’ under a 14-day rule.
Here are the results shown in our new video.
To calculate the infection rate for week n for those classified as vaccinated we divide the cumulative number of people classified as infected and vaccinated by week n by the cumulative number of people classified as vaccinated by end of week n.
For example, by end of week 4 a total of 161,147 people have been classified as vaccinated, of whom a total of 596 have been classified as infected. So the week 4 infection rate for the vaccinated is 596/161,147 which is 0.37%. We do the same for those classified as unvaccinated, so the week 4 infection rate for the unvaccinated is 2.22%. Note that, although the real weekly infection rates of the vaccinated and unvaccinated are always the same 2%, the infection rates after the ‘classification’ are always lower than 2% for those classified as ‘vaccinated’ and higher than 2% for those classified as ‘unvaccinated’.
To calculate the week n efficacy rate we divide the vaccinated infection rate by the unvaccinated infection rate and subtract this from 1, expressing the result as a percentage. Hence, the week 4 efficacy rate is 1 – (0.37÷2.22) = 0.834 = 83.4%.
Now we see that a completely useless (with true efficacy 0%) vaccine appears to have very high efficacy in the first few weeks. Although it continually wanes it is still above 50% after week 9. By week 14 the efficacy is still positive but only 12.1% – hence the need for a new booster dose! These simulated results are very similar to the real-world efficacy rates that were observed in the first three months of a new vaccine or booster.
Here are the results if there is a three-week (21-day) period before a person is classified as vaccinated (as per ONS method).
The efficacy achievable under the three-week (21-day) period is 95%.
So now they could claim the vaccine starts with 95% efficacy, but again you need the booster after three months for vaccination to be truly effective.
For those who doubt the ONS calculates vaccine efficacy this way, here is a screenshot from its document.
The same applies for further doses where there is always a 21-day delay before being classified as having that latest booster shot.
Even negative efficacy can be made to look 95% effective.
Note that for a placebo vaccine it is impossible to get negative efficacy. However, if there is a slightly higher infection rate for the vaccine compared to no vaccine then the same assumptions as above still yield high efficacy initially (92% at week 4) before eventually becoming negative. Here are the results if the vaccine actually increases the infection rate by 50% (so a 3% infection rate in the vaccinated rather than the assumed 2% in the above simulations).
Some caveats. In practice there are a number of factors which, if we included them in the simulation, would produce an even higher efficacy rate than could be claimed for a placebo vaccine. For example:
- The 2021 U.K. rollout happened during a period when the Covid infection rate was declining.
- Asymptomatic unvaccinated people were much more likely to be required to take PCR tests (to go to work or attend events, restaurants etc.) than asymptomatic vaccinated people, since the latter only had to show their proof of vaccination. In Israel during this period an unvaccinated person was six times more likely to have to be PCR tested than a vaccinated person. The high false positive rate for asymptomatics would therefore artificially increase the infection rate of the unvaccinated.
- People who were (or had recently been) PCR positive were not allowed to be vaccinated until 14 days after a negative test. This means the vaccinated cohort contained a higher proportion of people who already had natural immunity.
As we have shown the illusion of high efficacy is also present if the vaccine is worse than a placebo. In particular we know that, for the Covid vaccines, there was a disproportionately high infection rate within the first 14 days after vaccination. Given all of those infected within the first 14 days are classified as unvaccinated, this would lead to even higher efficacy rates than shown in our simulation.
On the issue of immunity, one simplification made in the simulation is that it does not take account of the fact that those who become infected during the period (whether vaccinated or not) would almost certainly not become infected again (and therefore should be removed from the count in subsequent weeks). However, unless the general infection rate is very high this has minimal impact on the efficacy results.
In conclusion, it may be reasonable to allow a certain amount of time for a vaccine to ‘work’. However, classifying a person who becomes infected within 14 or 21 days of vaccination as an ‘unvaccinated case’ in the calculation of vaccine efficacy is nothing short of a scam. It guarantees that any vaccine which is no different (or even worse) than a placebo will be seen to have high initial efficacy.
By using the 21-day period before considering a person vaccinated – as the ONS and others do for the Covid vaccines – means fraudulently high artificial efficacy rates are guaranteed. The apparent but completely artificial ‘waning’ of efficacy can also be used deviously to support the idea that after three or four months another dose of the vaccine is required to regain protection. Since the same delay in classification is used for those who have received a further dose, it is then guaranteed that high efficacy can again be claimed for the subsequent doses.
All of this creates a repeatable business model for Big Pharma.
Until he retired in January, Norman Fenton was Professor in Risk Information Management at Queen Mary University of London. Martin Neil is Professor in Computer Science and Statistics at Queen Mary University of London. This article first appeared on their Substack page, Where Are the Numbers?
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Regarding the Times article about Apple above ( which I haven’t read as I have no time for paywalls ), I had no idea what a horrible and unethical company they were until I read this fine substack from A Midwestern Doctor, which covers many things as well as the current protests in China;
“The current protests we are facing are a result of this system being used excessively. Things in China have now reached the point that many Chinese citizens are willing to risk relocation to a concentration camp (which is not a pretty subject to discuss) to protest what is happening (similarly many Iranians have recently been imprisoned or worse for protesting against the government). China’s government is predictably responding to this instability with even more heavy-handed tactics and initiating a downhill spiral of unsuccessful propaganda (which will be revisited later). As stated before, I believe this cycle is ultimately being initiated by China’s economic instability.
China’s present situation should make the absolute futility of our preferred method for managing COVID-19 apparent. Even with an elaborate system that tracks every (vaccinated) citizen, imposes draconian lockdowns at will, and tests on an almost daily basis, nothing can be done to contain the spread of COVID-19 and when the system is dialed up as high as it possibly can go, the existing government will break before the spread is stopped.”
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/the-current-protests-in-china-are
“China’s present situation should make the absolute futility of our preferred method for managing COVID-19 apparent”
And that’s the problem. The doctor believes in convid when the reality is that the C1984 is basically a rebranded ‘flu which was introduced in order to get Agenda 2030 up and running. Which is why I have little time for endless talking about C1984.
With ref the recent royal racism crisis; I read what was apparently a fairly complete account of the dialogue, and Lady Hussy was in my opinion racist and/or extraordinarily dumb/demented because she appeared to repeatedly refuse to accept that the local community project representative in front of her was a British citizen, a British resident, and insisted on knowing where their “people” came from. It sounded as if Lady Hussy simply couldn’t conceive of such an obviously black person being British, a British citizen and resident, and was impatiently condescending/contemptuous in her efforts to “get at the truth” of where this person “really” came from … or was being provocative/deliberately obtuse/offensive. There was definitely something wrong. I do understand why her reactions caused offence, even distress.
The person she was speaking to was very clearly not ethnically British and had apparently changed her name from a British one to Ngozi Fulani, so it was perfectly reasonable to ask about her origins.
Not after she had already answered that question and said she was from England.
PS. I also thought that it was a mountain out of a molehill when I first read about it, but reading the account of the full exchange I understood why it was upsetting.
…. people, on both the giving and receiving ends of such reactions, used to laugh about this sort of thing, laugh it off, dismiss it as just business as usual; it was normal, etc ….
.. but it can’t be very pleasant, especially in a situation where you believe that you can’t answer back, can’t say what you think about the reaction, etc.
I agree with Fulani that Lady Hussey shouldn’t have lost her post over it though. *That* is where the lack of proportion lies.
I think the big problem is that the setting/context didn’t allow or encourage Fulani to speak up, to call Lady Hussey out about it at the time. She didn’t seem to think that she could say what she thought to Lady Hussey, the occasion and the place ( and Lady Hussey’s title too ?) silenced her.
I remember a black colleague recounting the time there was National Front march along her street when she was a young girl. ‘What are they shouting?’ she asked her father. ‘Go back home’ said her father. ‘But I am home’ she replied.
It was interesting to hear what Nigel Farage said about it all, on his out-and-about programme last night, between 19:00 & 20:00. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDWB3_45yPg The gist of it being that Hussy was the ‘victim’, as it were. He was probably right by saying that this wouldn’t make the press anywhere else!
2 thoughts come to mind:
1 If she really were “racist”, she wouldn’t even have spoken to her in the first place.
2 Being from Liverpool, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked if I have Irish ancestry – is this any different?
Yes, what she said was thick-eared, heavy-handed and inappropriate but to say it was “racist” is, to my mind, stretching the definition.
This post suggests the trigger for the questions might have been the mismatch between the accent (West Indian) and the name (African): https://www.unz.com/isteve/ngozi-fulani-is-actually-marlene-headley/
“Switzerland, facing an unprecedented power shortage, contemplates a partial ban on the use of electric vehicles”
It’s ironic that Switzerland imports a lot from Germany & France these days. It’s long been using hydro electric generation, and of course the difficulties outside the border encouraged it’s development, along with electric traction on the railways.
They could turn CERN off, that would save a bit of electric (1.2 terrawatts in 2012, probably a lot more now).
Today’s onshore wind farm story: https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/12/onshore-wind-farm-ban-could-have-added-800m-to-household-bills/
Remember the original SARS virus? Neither do I, other than some vague memory of it causing panic then it seemed to disappear.
Why did that one vanish but this new one seems to be hanging around? What was different this time around?
https://off-guardian.org/2022/12/01/the-real-reason-behind-chinas-zero-covid-policy/
The brilliant Kit Knightly at Off-G providing a superb explanation of China’s role in the Scamdemic.
Truly insightful piece – thanks for posting…
This is the effect of suppressing and censoring information:
Before, we could assume most information was closer to false and pick out what we deemed to be closer to true for further debate. This worked well because those amplifying closer to false information were lost in the sea of all the other assumed closer to false information.
Now, we are to assume most information to be closer to true (because it’s been filtered) and pick out what we deem to be closer to false and remove it. Those amplifying closer to false information now have more status because most information that we see has to be assumed to be closer to true until it is verified and/or removed.
The more information is removed the more we must assume the information we see is closer to true, even if it isn’t.
Posted in error.
Another cause of death unknown:-
https://www.nme.com/news/tv/orange-is-the-new-black-actor-brad-william-henke-dies-aged-56-3359683
It was possible he was injected given he had worked on a NBCUniversal production: Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
https://screenrant.com/law-order-svu-warren-leight-unvaccinated-actors-response/
https://off-guardian.org/2022/12/01/the-real-reason-behind-chinas-zero-covid-policy/
CONCLUSION
To sum up, China’s “zero covid” approach forms a vital piece of the overall pandemic narrative, working in conjunction with Western governments as a deliberately stark contrast:
-It promotes the idea that vaccines work and helped prevent further lockdowns here.
-It shines a flattering light on Western governments, who appear less draconian by comparison.
-It serves as an argument for the effectiveness of lockdowns and other authoritarian measures.
Perhaps most importantly, the supposed difference works to corral and control public debate.
Traditionally leftwing critics of Western capitalism are forced to defend vaccines and lockdowns by their ideological loyalty to China.
Conversely, right-wingers have China’s “socialist” practices to point their fingers at, whilst praising Western capitalist pharmaceutical innovation for saving us from the need for tighter lockdowns.
Each side is controlled by their ideology, not realising their loyalties are being used to position them inside the permissible spectrum of opinion.
I posted a link to this excellent Kit Knightly article this morning.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/12/doug-casey/global-government-vs-the-people/
I’ll go so far as to say that Central Bank Digital Currencies and digital “health passports” are the most dangerous threats to the freedom and independence of the average human being in modern history—perhaps in world history. They will control where you can go, what you can do, and what you can own. They’re both very big deals, and they’ll be daily facts of life before 2023 is over. It’s very disturbing that we don’t hear either of them discussed anywhere. They should be taken with the utmost seriousness and stopped.