The ‘stylized facts’ concerning vaccine effectiveness against Covid are as follows. First, the vaccines confer strong protection against infection, which peaks about one month after the second dose. However, this protection then wanes over the following five or six months to as low as 20% (or even lower).
Second, the vaccines also confer strong protection against serious illness and death, and this protection wanes much more slowly. Hence, six months after vaccination, the vaccinated still have substantial protection against death.
While these stylized facts are approximately right, there’s reason to believe that vaccine effectiveness against death has been overestimated. Note: by ‘overestimated’ I simply mean that effectiveness may be somewhat lower than is claimed, not that effectiveness is zero (or even close to zero).
The reason effectiveness against death may have been overestimated was highlighted in a recent study by the U.S. CDC. Using data on a large cohort of Americans, Stanley Xu and colleagues calculated non-Covid death rates (adjusted for age and sex) among vaccinated and unvaccinated persons.
Their findings are shown in the figure below (taken from the Economist). Notice that, on both charts, the light blue bar is much higher than the other two bars, indicating that non-Covid death rates were substantially higher among the unvaccinated.
The researchers interpreted their results as evidence of vaccine safety. (If the vaccines were very unsafe, you’d expect a lot more non-Covid deaths in the vaccine groups.) However, there’s another implication, which the researchers also acknowledge: people who get vaccinated tend to be healthier and/or more risk-averse than those who don’t.
How do we explain this ‘healthy vaccinee’ effect? There are at least two possibilities. First, some people may be too frail to get vaccinated, due to old age or underlying health conditions. Second, some people may just be inherently healthier/more risk-averse, and as a result may be more likely to get vaccinated and less likely to die of other causes.
The CDC researchers actually attempted to control for the healthy vaccinee effect by selecting unvaccinated persons from among those who’d had at least one flu shot in the last two years. The fact that they still observed a difference in death rates suggests the true effect may be even larger.
While the CDC’s results might be good news from the perspective of vaccine safety, they’re bad news from the perspective of vaccine effectiveness.
Suppose you do a study, and find that the Covid death rate is ten times higher among unvaccinated people than among vaccinated people. That difference could be due to the vaccines. But it could also be due to the fact that vaccinated people are less likely to die for any reason.
Observational studies of vaccine effectiveness do attempt to control for the healthy vaccinee effect, for example by including some measure of health/frailty as another variable in the analysis. However, these kinds of measures may not capture all the relevant differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
Consider Israel. By the start of June, the country had fully vaccinated 55% of its population (and an even higher percentage of adults). Despite this, and despite having gone through two previous waves of Covid, the country saw a major third wave associated with the Delta variant. Here’s the chart of daily Covid deaths:
One might have assumed that natural immunity from the two previous waves, combined with a 55% vaccination rate, would have kept deaths to a minimum. Yet the number of deaths was still substantial, at least relative to the previous waves. This is particularly evident if we look at excess mortality:
Total excess mortality in Israel’s third was about the same as in its first wave, and was actually higher than in its second wave. Now, it’s true that a disproportionate share of Covid deaths were among the unvaccinated. But this is consistent with the healthy vaccinee effect.
Of course, I’m not claiming that a plot of excess mortality in one country constitutes a serious analysis. Mortality would presumably have been higher absent the vaccination campaign. However, it’s hard to reconcile the chart above with claims of, say, 90% effectiveness against death.
To repeat: I’m not claiming the vaccines aren’t effective against serious illness and death; only that their effectiveness (after two doses) may have been overstated. Offering the vaccine to over 50s still makes sense as a way to achieve focused protection.
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This evil must be stopped.
The Government will not stop this. Parents have to fight back. Home school individually or in groups. Or, perhaps form groups and demonstrate outside the school and name and shame the heads of those schools for the perversion of their children. Make the head teachers lives hell upon which they will approach their unions for help. The unions will then either do nothing with the result of head teachers resigning, sick leave etc causing headaches for the educational authorities to remedy the situation or the unions may put pressure on the goverment to reconsider ‘identity’ lessons. Take a leaf out of the Left activism book and turn it against the progressives.
And whilst doing this join centre right challenger parties whose manifesto state they will halt this state perversion of children.
I agree wholeheartedly; as with the schools allowing children under the age of majority to take part in protests where illegal acts are committed, even if High Plod Rowley disagrees, this is a Child Safety issue. Adults who sanction this, who have had to undergo a high level Disclosure and Barring Service vetting in order to go to work should be reported by their Heads ( unless they agree ). The Chair of Governors of these schools are equally responsible for these minors being exploited in this horrendous manner.
But that is in a world in which we do not inhabit; home schooling is the obvious answer but only if a parent can undertake this responsibility …. and for those families who cannot, what a Catch 22 this is.
Where is the safeguarding for these children? Are these private providers checked? Are they allowed access to the children alone? Are they given access to the children’s private data and contact details.
Saviles, Epsteins, Blairs etc. of the world rejoice! Worth watching the whole No Outsiders promo video of which the Teddy is an extract.
https://youtu.be/CIH7I_SEU0E
Shush we can’t say paedophiles have infiltrated primary schools because that would offend the paedophiles.
Ah yes, bless their little cotton socks. They’re so persecuted. They must be free to explore their perversions.
(To be clear, this is sarcasm, just in case it wasn’t obvious)
“Minor attracted persons”, please!
No Outsiders boss Andrew Moffat wrote: “This teaching must begin in primary schools. We are all intersectional; one identity does not suffice to make up who we are.”
IMHO, the appropriate place for this person is a mental asylum the moments he starts to make a nuisance of himself and certainly not an elementary school where he can freely preach to really young children lacking the mental capacity and experience necessary for assessing the value of his statements. Children which aren’t yet sexually mature obviously don’t have an idea what being a man or a woman actually means. And this deranged would-be pied piper shouldn’t have an opportunity to exploit this.
Words fail me, can’t kids just be kids?
They’ll work out the rest in due corse!
I did.
Target the school governors of the schools that allow this.
If you don’t want your children indoctrinated with this nonsense, home-school them.
Horrendous teacher!!! I see this as child abuse. I would home school if this happened.
Run away to a place they won’t find! is never the solution. Should these people find themselves dispossessed of a sizeable number of vulnerable pupils to exploit, they’ll find a way to make this illegal to Save the children!