Hi, I wonder whether some of you could help me with this query: A close relative of mine has contacted me and made an urgent plea for me to get jabbed asap with Pfizer or Moderna. He is a Hospital Doctor (Geriatrics) in Germany and when discussing the side effects and deaths reported through Yellow Card following vaccination, he has said that the death rate from Covid is significantly higher. He claims that for my age (54) the death rate when catching Covid is 0.6%, where as the reported deaths or severe side effects after vaccination are more in the region of 1 in 5000, i.e. 0.02 %. On this basis he says that it is a no brainer for me to take the vaccine, especially as in the UK now case numbers are going to be much higher due to absent restrictions.
I have so far been comfortable with my decision not take the vaccine and was also hoping that i might not even get Covid. Now I am confused and unsure in my decision. I am not asking you to make a decision for me, but rather to get a handle on the scary figure of infection fatality rate. I am quite aware of the difficulty of calculating this figure but what do you make of it and how does it compare with the risks following vaccination?
thanks.
Hi, I wonder whether some of you could help me with this query:
...
I have so far been comfortable with my decision not take the vaccine and was also hoping that i might not even get Covid. Now I am confused and unsure in my decision. I am not asking you to make a decision for me, but rather to get a handle on the scary figure of infection fatality rate. I am quite aware of the difficulty of calculating this figure but what do you make of it and how does it compare with the risks following vaccination?
thanks.
The 0.6% is nothing more that an estimate based on a model from the RKI. The true IFR can only be accurately determined after the epidemic has runs its course. When you can find out just how many people got an infection by population studies. Symptomatic and asymptotic. The asymptotic infection estimate used by the RKI models is not consistent with actual SARs 2 viral pneumonia cases seen by age group. It understates it by a factor of around two.
The other big problem with the IFR estimate for SARs CoV 2 is the Case Fatality Rate. Which is used to calculate the Infection Fatality Rate. It uses an non standard definition of "case" when compared with all other epidemic infectious diseases. With SARs CoV 1 for example a case was a patient diagnosed with viral pneumonia who then had a positive SARs 1 active infection test. With SARs CoV 2 a case is anyone with a positive test result for a non clinically valid screening test. Divide official SARS 2 case numbers by at least 10 and you might start getting actual equivalent numbers.
When you add in that the IFR only applies to the 30% to 40% of the population who might get an infection before it becomes endemic you can see that your relative is comparing two complete different risk numbers. The actual risk of a medical procedure versus the greatly overstated risk of a potential viral infection. If you actually caught it and it became symptomatic.
I am quite aware of the difficulty of calculating this figure but what do you make of it and how does it compare with the risks following vaccination?
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Do you trust Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jonathan Van-Tamm, or some loud geezers on a website?
I am quite aware of the difficulty of calculating this figure but what do you make of it and how does it compare with the risks following vaccination?
.
Do you trust Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jonathan Van-Tamm, or some loud geezers on a website?
You mean the guy who had not the slightest problem with the official published IFR for SARs CoV 1 in 2003 being 2%...
Almost the same as the CFR
That guy?
The IFR that was used as the base value in all early guestimates for the IFR of SARs CoV 2 from Jan 2020 to early / mid summer 2020. And even when the first published clinical papers started being published in early March 2020 showing that the estimated probable IFR value was very like other HCOV's, so nothing like 2%, these papers were ignored for many months.
Thats the guy you are telling people to believe?
Yeah, sure..
@lordsnooty Unfortunately, my trust in the information provided by media and politicians has greatly decreased over the last 1.5 years. The inability to provide unbiased information and give spin to everything in order to influence behaviour has led to this caution. I need clean information that allows me to make up my mind without constantly someone trying to push me into one direction. The government admits this openly, that they used scaretactics in order to increase the personal threat level so that people comply with measures and now the vaccine. So the answer to your question is: neither. i would like some proper evidence that is peer reviewed and is transparent so I can make up my mind.
... I am quite aware of the difficulty of calculating this figure but what do you make of it and how does it compare with the risks following vaccination?....
You haven't given us much to work with here if you want a serious estimate of the risk that Covid might pose to you personally. All we have is your age, 54, and that you are in the UK. That isn't enough. There are plenty of other factors that would affect your risk. Let us know your general state of health including all relevant underlying health problems. Have a look at this NHS advice on who they assess as "high risk", "moderate risk" and "low risk". Which group are you in? Any respiratory problems or obesity? How have you reacted to vaccines in the past?
Let's assume you are "low risk". If you're not planning on foreign travel I'd say there isn't much reason for a low risk person to get vaccinated. The case for healthy 54 year-olds being vaccinated has not been made. Do you live in close proximity with high/moderate risk people? Nobody wants to make other people sick, so this might change your mind.
You also need to remember that you won't get a choice about which vaccine you get. It's a matter for debate but in my opinion the AstraZeneca vaccine seems to have more side effects for older people, but having said that, the chances of serious side effects for a healthy 54 year-old seem small.
The government might decide at some point to persecute the unvaccinated. There is nothing much at the moment but who knows what the Winter will bring? Let's suppose they create a "booster" which will be added to the "Winter flu shot". Do you have the Winter flu shot? It may be impossible to obtain the "booster" unless you've had both previous vaccinations. Who knows? I can see that you might start to feel "left behind" if you have not had any vaccinations when other people in your demographic have had three - this psychological effect could be damaging even though the reality may be that the vaccinations themselves are completely pointless.
So, let us know more about your health & related issues. Or you may choose not to.
@halfhearted Hell, has it come to this that we have to spend our lives working out the statistics of risk. Life is for living, not for cowering away because of the bogeymen we let into our imaginations. As far as I know, the average age at death fron Covid stands at 81 or thereabouts. I've never been aware of people dropping in the streets, ambulances rushing around at all hours or the crematoria working flat out because of all the dead victims. Has anyone? I've been prepared to live with the risk of Covid whilst my immune system is still functioning, but I'm not prepared to take the risk of this so-called vaccine. Period. Answer me this. If it's so safe as the makers and promoters claim (such as Prof Dalgleish in today's Mail) why are they protected by an exemption from liabilty clause? Also, as someone on LS pointed out when the vaccine programme started out, will the authorities be giving us the figures for deaths within 28 days of having a vaccine? Did one need to ask?
@halfhearted Thanks for your thoughts. Happy to fill in the gaps: 54, health male with no underlying health conditions or risk factors. non smoker and reasonably fit. Do not live with vulnerable people.
I am quite conscious about the pressure all over and that this is likely to increase. I am prepared and will hopefully cope with this side of things as we live in a supportive village where there are significant number of people choosing NOT to take the shot. Work is more complicated but I can get around it so far.
I would not take the vaccine based on convenience or pressure. The only reason I would take it is because it makes medically and socially sense. If the personal risk equation does not stack up pro vaccine, i.e. risk of covid larger than risk of vaccine, there is no point in going for it. If the vaccine for example would actually make it impossible to develop Covid, there would be a stronger social argument. At the moment I have the sense that vaccinated people are getting covid all over the place and there is not really much of a difference. This is the issue with kids getting vaccinated as it seems more like a sacrifice than something that is of benefit to children directly. I am concerned about the health risks and unknown long term impact, if our immunsystem starts relying on annual updates like my computer and is not able to cope with the viruses by itself any longer. I would hope that our immunsystem is perfect as it is and does need tweaking or changing as attempted with these shots. You mention Flue Jab: I have never had one and won't take one, as I have not seen any research evidence to underpin this. I have been told this by GP's themselves.
Foreign travel is obviously a big issue and something important to me, being originally from Europe. I would hope that there must be a way around as it seems unreasonable to prevent about 20% (unvaccinated against covid) of the population from foreign travel. I am hoping that this will be possible in some way with testing etc.
All very frustrating but we need to stay clear in our decision making.
Sounds like you've thought carefully about all this. I'd agree that at the moment for a healthy 54 yr-old there doesn't seem much point. In the long run I can't see the airlines dropping demands either for vaccination certification or alternatively for pre-flight testing. I assume they are worried about being sued. The UK government will continue to try to pressure people into being vaccinated. I believe they are stuck in a feedback loop and find themselves unable to resist or reject calls for "more measures" and/or "tighter restrictions" that arise from public fear and Leftist propaganda that they themselves are fuelling.
@halfhearted Thanks for your thoughts. Happy to fill in the gaps: 54, health male with no underlying health conditions or risk factors. non smoker and reasonably fit. Do not live with vulnerable people.
All very frustrating but we need to stay clear in our decision making.
This is the standard clinical calculator to assess pneumonia risk (which SARs 2 is) that has been used in a clinical setting in the US for the last few decades.
https://www.mdcalc.com/psi-port-score-pneumonia-severity-index-cap
UK doctors us a different approach but the US approach to risk assessment gives a better feel for total risk rather than the partial risk in the UK equivalent.
FYI I am older than you, have multiple chronic (but non debilitating) medical conditions and my normal city of residence is the Grand Central Station for every respiratory illness virus variant doing the rounds. I got Swine Flu in 2009 less than 4 weeks after it first turned up in a southern Mexican state capitol and one of the nastier H3N2 variants less than three months after first being identified in Guangzhou.
My PSI/PORT score when combined with other relevant actuarial data still shows my risk of mortality from a SARs CoV 2 pneumonia in the next year is less than the probability of dying in a road accident. This is without adding in the high probability I already have immunity due to a mildly symptomatic infection in March 2020. As with other HCOV infections that should protect me for the next 5 to 10 years. This should reduce the mortality risk by up to an order of magnitude. So about the same probability of dying in a major earthquake. I've been through two of those already so no worries there.
So about the same probability of dying in a major earthquake. I've been through two of those already so no worries there.
I acquired immunity from earthquakes by standing on an unstable pile of loose bricks many years ago.
So about the same probability of dying in a major earthquake. I've been through two of those already so no worries there.
I acquired immunity from earthquakes by standing on an unstable pile of loose bricks many years ago.
Its not so much what you are standing on but what you are standing under that is the problem. So its mostly a matter of knowing when and where to dive. And knowing to start counting on first sign of a problem.
The S wave usually hits after 5 second or so. If its a major quake and not a tremor you will feel the S and after that the severity of the earthquake is pretty much the duration of the S wave shaking. Once it goes above 30 seconds its also good to know what the partial collapse probability for the building you are in is. And have an escape route worked out before hand. Most people die due to freezing and not taking action to protect themselves. They are mostly hit by falling stuff. Usually bits of ceilings. Or flying stuff. Usually furniture.
So once you have been through it a few times you know the drill. It becomes second nature. Although it is disconcerting when I am in the UK and I instinctively size up wherever I am for earthquake survivability. I start thinking this place would come down in a 6+. All that furniture would become airborne in a 5+. Then I have to remind myself, no big earthquakes here. Just grey skys and rain. The never ending rain...
This bulletin from the WHO deals with the Covid IFR "Publication: Bulletin of the World Health Organization; Type: Research, Article ID: BLT.20.265892"
It says that in people < 70 years, infection fatality rates ranged from 0.00% to 0.31% with crude and corrected medians of 0.05%. So, being 54, this applies to you. This is 10 times less than your close relative's estimate. I suggest you ask him where he got the figure of 0.6%.
@halfhearted Yes. And factor in the chances of getting covid-19. Once the jab is taken, there will be a 100% chance of risking its adverse effects.
@halfhearted Thanks. That is a very helpful paper. I wonder whether there is something more recent?
The problem you are facing here is the actual definition of a " covid death". The Covid fatality, unlike any other cause of death, is now death with a postive test within 28 days. Covid is not the driver of death in most cases. A study in the US showed that in just 6% of "deaths with covid" was covid the primary cause of death.
So the stats being given based on that basis are patently absurd statistics.
You can tell the statistics are false by analysing the other causes of deaths. Because dead bodies can't be invented and they must match death certificates, the govt/health service have to alter the death certificates to keep the numbers up.
Simply put, it appears that respiratory deaths especially, flu, pneumonia, chronic lower respiratory disease, plus cancer, heart disease and all other major causes of death are being mislabled as "covid" (using the knowingly flawed pcr test).
Unless there is another explanation I can't think of why all major causes of death would fall when covid appears, but there is no significant excess death.
So to answer your question, the vaccine is far more dangerous to a healthy person than covid which is a flu effectively.
Q10. You're a mere youngster. This 70-year old is quite frankly sick to death of graphs, statistics and the suchlike. From the outset of this whole episode I was aware of the concocted fear factor - like Laura Dodsworth, the author of the brilliant book 'The State of Fear', I was shocked early on by people's strange behaviour. I vowed not to look at any MSM news about COVID, and I've maintained that position. Fear is the killer punch that lies behind and maintains this whole charade.
I have also followed the advice of a particular alternative health voice and have taken zinc, B12 and vitamin C to aid my immune system (also, on occasion, lemon balm and catsfoot), together with the avoidance of eggs and dairy in the diet. I've also stayed active (I do tai chi daily) and have been out and about as much as possible. Regarding the masks (or comfort blankets as Dr Colin Axon has recently called them), I've only worn one when I've been in a medical / pharmacy setting, just to avoid any awkwardness. So, my approach has been to treat the whole thing with a silent contempt. Someone on this medium referred it as The Great Hoodwink and I agree.
@beornwulf Thanks for your experiences. I read the book you are quoting. Very interesting.
