@Shotclog - You write:
"Britain has had an average of 30,000-40,000 (roughly) "cases" a day for months now and yet hospital admissions and deaths remain stubbornly flat. The vaccines obviously work by reference to the only important measure, namely the ability to limit serious illness and death."
I guess the premise you mean to cite here is that for the past few months, despite numbers of reported "cases" not being far below what they were in January, before mass vaccination, when the reported rate of deaths "with Covid" was high, the reported numbers of hospital admissions "with Covid" and deaths "with Covid" have been much smaller than they were then.
That does not show that "vaccines obviously work".
@Shotclog - You write:
"Britain has had an average of 30,000-40,000 (roughly) "cases" a day for months now and yet hospital admissions and deaths remain stubbornly flat. The vaccines obviously work by reference to the only important measure, namely the ability to limit serious illness and death."
I guess the premise you mean to cite here is that for the past few months, despite numbers of reported "cases" not being far below what they were in January, before mass vaccination, when the reported rate of deaths "with Covid" was high, the reported numbers of hospital admissions "with Covid" and deaths "with Covid" have been much smaller than they were then.
That does not show that "vaccines obviously work".
YES. your analysis is correct.
Vaccines obviously work.
@thinksaboutit - I wasn't "analysing". I was simply clarifying what @Shotclog had written, which was of the form "PREMISE makes CLAIM obviously true". I was stating more clearly what his premise was. You seem to think I did a good job. I don't think anybody denies the premise.
Now then, please can you explain (which might require something other than the internet one-liner or "tweet" form of communication) why it is, in your view, that the said premise makes it "obviously" the case that "vaccines work". What's your reasoning?
@star Well, in so far as I had any reasoning it is this. When one compares "case" figures now/over the last few months with equivalent "case" numbers in periods pre-January 2020, one sees much, much lower levels of hospitalisation and deaths. The main difference between now and then (at least in my view) is the vaccination programme. That tells my rather simple brain that the vaccination programme seems to have had a direct (and helpful) effect. It may not "prove" it in some higher philosophical sense, but I'm afraid I'm rather too dense to understand such things, and tend to be guided by observable facts, not logical theory.
I would of course accept that natural immunity (from prior infection) is playing a part too, but if the reported "case" numbers are correct, the numbers protected in this way are far fewer than the millions who have been vaccinated. And of course, human behaviour (e.g. some people still avoiding social contact) might also be playing a part. But overall, vaccination is the big change and therefore likely to be the main explanation for the lower hospitalisations/deaths. I can't see strong grounds to dispute this statement, but perhaps you'll explain why you do.
@shotclog - Just to be clear: I was not asking for a "proof" as if this were mathematics, but just for your reasoning. You are relying on the idea that the main difference in circumstances between this current autumn and last winter is the vaccination programme. But many bugs fall away without vaccination (e.g. ones that cause the common cold) and in the particular case of SARSCoV2 there have been countries with all sorts of different graphs. (See the OurWorldInData.com website, where you can select countries and look at graphs for cases, hospitalisations, vaccinations, etc., including relative to population size.) Tunisia, for example, has a relatively low rate of vaccination and yet the case rate has fallen by a lot since July when it was about the same as Britain's. Or, to keep the focus on severity of symptoms, take Germany, where recorded hospital admissions "with Covid" are running at about a quarter of the rate in Britain, but recorded deaths are at about half the British rate, giving a rate of deaths per hospitalisations that is twice as high as in Britain but the vaccination rates in the two countries are practically identical.
@star Thanks-understood on why you asked the question.
The difficulty I have with your approach is that it introduces too much uncertainty and/or relies on assumptions which may or may not be valid (e.g. "many bugs fall away without vaccination"-but is that actually happening here?). I appreciate that other countries have different graphs and data, but I personally don't find such comparisons useful. Every country seems to measure the relevant metrics differently and each has implemented different testing/vaccination regimes so a like-for-like comparison is rarely possible. That's why I prefer to focus on Britain since it is tolerably possible to make direct comparisons across periods. The obvious explanation for lower hospitalisations/deaths in Britain now is vaccination. Other explanations are possible, but they seem to require speculation/guesswork and that's why, at this stage, I prefer the vaccination explanation.
For reasoning... there are several approaches.
1. Read the clinical trials reports, for the vaccines.
2. Look at the PHE vaccine efficacy reports.
3. A DIY approach...try calculating deaths/infection before and after the vaccination program in any country that has vaccinated a large proportion of the population. You will see the number is much lower post vaccination program.
Do any one of these and you will conclude that the "vaccines obviously work"
@thinksaboutit
Here's a DIY approach:
October 2020: jab rollout not commenced; rise in cases; tier system; lockdown by November; Christmas cancelled; locked down in one form or another until "freedom" day in July 2021.
October 2021: almost 90 percent of the population have had at least one jab; millions of those seriously at risk (based on data and facts) now triple jabbed. Yet, yesterday threatened with lockdown, reintroduction of mask mandates and Christmas being cancelled.
I'll wait, but it's not sounding like the jabs are very effective based on the govt's latest threats. They must know something you don't.
@thinksaboutit
Here's a DIY approach:
October 2020: jab rollout not commenced; rise in cases; tier system; lockdown by November; Christmas cancelled; locked down in one form or another until "freedom" day in July 2021.
October 2021: almost 90 percent of the population have had at least one jab; millions of those seriously at risk (based on data and facts) now triple jabbed. Yet, yesterday threatened with lockdown, reintroduction of mask mandates and Christmas being cancelled.
I'll wait, but it's not sounding like the jabs are very effective based on the govt's latest threats. They must know something you don't.
Your comments have zero to do with vaccine efficacy.
The efficacy is proven to be good. That's a fact whether you accept it or not.
There are 87% of over 12 population who haven't had the first jab. That leaves 13% to freely catch covid. If those 13% were to get vaccinated it would see off any threats of NPIs.
Lots of these things trotted out are because people don't understand ARA, RRR and VE and the vital differences.
Lots also misuse *unadjusted* data so completely fail to remove biases or confounders.
Is there a graph that plots covid cases/hospitalisations/deaths from the beginning (Mar 2020?) to now (Nov 2021) with indicators when the various vaccines and other measures (e.g. masks) were introduced, to give a quick visual indication of their (in)effectiveness?
Negative vaccine effectiveness means that the calculations indicate that the vaccinated are more likely to catch the disease that they're vaccinated against, than the unvaccinated.
This seems like it should be impossible, but there are fairly well understood immune mechanisms that might result in it.
The recent studies out of Sweden and Qatar that have identified negative vaccine effectiveness are very concerning. These two studies aren't enough in themselves to prove that the vaccines are now making things worse, but they very much are a sign that we really need much more up-to-date information about how the vaccines are performing.
The point about hospitalisations vs cases is quite correct -- in many respects the case load doesn't matter that much. However, I'd note that we've just entering the season where upper respiratory tract infections start to cause significant problems -- it perhaps shouldn't be surprising that hospitalisations were low in summer and autumn, but similarly, it should be expected that hospitalisations will rise significantly as we go into winter.
Negative VEs in this case are applying the wrong data and wrong denominators to the data.
(And no, Qatar didn't show a negative VE).
Negative VEs in this case are applying the wrong data and wrong denominators to the data.
(And no, Qatar didn't show a negative VE).
Most of the anti vaxx arguements are based on the inappropriate analysis of data. The people who do the original work know they are being dishonest. Their followers are too stupid to understand what is going on and just repeat it.
They are to stupid to know they are stupid. It is quite sad really.
