if the efficacy of the vaccines were as claimed the vaccinated case rates would be substantially lower than the un-vaccinated.
And according to ZOE they are, but it is not the vaccine. The vaccines are far from 100%. I do not know the true efficacy. I doubt we are near 85% yet on two grounds, a) second doses are lagging behind and b) manufacturer claims are likely to be exaggerated. There are confounding factors beyond efficacy.
Although one dose coverage is approaching 100% (it is 87.5% in adults) average efficacy is low so we should be seeing more cases in the vaccinated and fewer in the unvaccinated, and ZOE is not. The ZOE people saw 22.6k new cases in the unvaccinated on July 3, and 11.1k new cases in the vaccinated. this conflicts.
https://lockdownsceptics.org/2021/07/07/
This is hard to reconcile. The vaccinated case rates are much lower than the un-vaccinated rates which defies the expected efficacy. Just plugging in the figures, it would need an average vaccine efficacy of 94%! That is impossible, it must be something else. Perhaps the vaccinated group is older and more cautious than the unvaccinated, which skews its infection rate lower. Older age groups have a lower infection rate. This effect is so pronounced, it gives an "apparent" average vaccine efficacy of 94%. So I'll try to model this. population uk is 66m, i.e. 52.5m adults.
There have been 45.9m first doses and 33m second doses , I'll ignore the difference in efficacy between one dose and two and ignore ages, I will find the apparent average vaccine efficacy in the vaccinated group. This compound value will represent, a) the effect of vaccines on top of b) the effect of different behaviour in older people.
To balance the books, I choose an apparent average vaccine efficacy of 94%, this is the relative risk reduction of the vaccinated group.
There are 6.6m unvaccinated adults who are not protected by any "risk reduction", they are young and unvaccinated. Let us say a period passes and 1 in 300 of the unvaccinated get covid19, this amounts to 22k cases, designed to tally with ZOE. In the same period, one would expect (6% of 1 in 20 ) of the vaccinated to get sick which is 9.2k cases. Giving a total of 31K cases.
So it seems just behaving old gives you protection and taking the vaccine gives you some more.
...
Although one dose coverage is approaching 100% (it is 87.5% in adults) average efficacy is low so we should be seeing more cases in the vaccinated and fewer in the unvaccinated, and ZOE is not. The ZOE people saw 22.6k new cases in the unvaccinated on July 3, and 11.1k new cases in the vaccinated. this conflicts.
https://lockdownsceptics.org/2021/07/07/
This is hard to reconcile. The vaccinated case rates are much lower than the un-vaccinated rates which defies the expected efficacy. Just plugging in the figures, it would need an average vaccine efficacy of 94%! That is impossible, it must be something else. Perhaps the vaccinated group is older and more cautious than the unvaccinated, which skews its infection rate lower. Older age groups have a lower infection rate. This effect is so pronounced, it gives an "apparent" average vaccine efficacy of 94%. So I'll try to model this. population uk is 66m, i.e. 52.5m adults.
Given the more recent numbers coming from Zoe it would appear that the conflict in the numbers you quoted was because a time effect. Now, quite why there is a time effect in the data is unclear. Is there a slower disease progression in the vaccinated? I'd suggest that it is very important that this is investigated.
Excellent nobody and JMC again.. another morphed character from the same account to educate...😁
Excellent nobody and JMC again.. another morphed character from the same account to educate... 😉
Perhaps we should call the morphed characters 'variants'
if the efficacy of the vaccines were as claimed the vaccinated case rates would be substantially lower than the un-vaccinated.
And according to ZOE they are, but it is not the vaccine. The vaccines are far from 100%. I do not know the true efficacy. I doubt we are near 85% yet on two grounds, a) second doses are lagging behind and b) manufacturer claims are likely to be exaggerated. There are confounding factors beyond efficacy.
As ZOE is a self reporting system and not a controlled survey its numbers are basically worthless from an epidemiological point of view. You might be able to exact some low quality trend numbers from such a data source but thats about it. You can make absolutely no reliable quantitative or qualitative conclusions from such a source. In statistical terms the width of the confidence interval is pretty much the same as the value range.
Now there is a very good reason why with SARs CoV 2 the vaccinated group will always have a higher "case" rate than the unvaccinated group. As a case is defined as anyone with a positive "COVID test" which in this case is usually the RT/PCT test and the false positive rate is so high both groups with have about the same number of false positives. But as the vaccinated will always have a disproportionate number of high risk people who will test true positive and as the high risk group have the lowest response rates to vaccines and its such a low prevalence endemic virus the probability of the high risk vaccinated people getting an infection will always be higher that the probability of the low risk un-vaccinated people getting an infection.
Public health medicine is often like that.
It would be a very different story if the SARs Cov 2 virus was far more infectious, had higher endemic prevalence, or even if the high risk group had the same age profile as for influenza. Then mass vaccination might make a real difference. But as none of these criteria are true for SARs Cov 2 then from a purely public health point of view the SARs Cov 2 is a basically a placebo. Epidemiological speaking. It wont make much difference because it cant. No matter what the claimed efficacy is.
I'm seeking reasons to continue to support vaccination , but not children.
I'll trust ZOE and my little model to try different scenarios. There are 22k cases per day in the vaccinated group and 11k new cases in the unvaccinated. And a case in the vaccinated is worse off in one respect - the group is older. And better off in another respect as the group is vaccinated and vaccine mitigates the disease. The converse is true for an individual in the unvaccinated. They are younger, which works in their favour, they had no vaccine, the disease is worse. So let's use an old trick and assume the good and bad sides for an individual in the vaccinated group cancel, and the good and bad sides for an individual in the unvaccinated group cancel. That won't be exactly right, but I can't do better. And I don't know if case verification is worth a shit. but that's true in both groups.
Having said all that, all being made equal, a case in one group has the same risk of death as a case in the other, although lost years are more important in the younger still unvaccinated group. In the round, I'd still rather have fewer cases than more, as all cases have some cost, zealots would squeal about long covid now, or adverse reactions.
So the vaccinated group already has the fewest cases. We cannot vaccinate people again, so if we want fewer cases, we have to make the unvaccinated group smaller. This also works with the thought that unvaccinated are younger and death is more bitter as discussed.
So there is a lot of uncertainty. But it's good to try to weigh what we can. I'm certainly open to persuasion, should wish to point out my error. I'll tweak my model to use 100% vaccination. But there is more! Older people seems to have a 94% relative risk reduction compared to younger ones, as discussed in previous post, in large part due to different social behaviour. It would not be reasonable to assume the vaccinated group would continue to enjoy such a large risk reduction, since vaccination does not make young people behave as old ones. That would be silly, let's use a factor of 85%, which is in line with vaccine trials. It's a guess.
With that final change, the reduction in cases is minor,from 31k to 26k, but these are young lives with many years to live, so it's marginal from here on in, but I still support adult vaccination.
Assume 100% adult vaccination, less risk reduction in younger people.
.....Can someone explain to me why they want to inoculate children?....As far as I can see in the UK at the moment there has been no decision to vaccinate anyone under the age of 18. It is still being debated. My guess is that the government hasn't had a clear enough positive response from focus groups and polls on child vaccination to give it the go-ahead. The problem they face is that since they're going to be vaccinating millions of children some will die and then there will be a public reaction. Clearly it will be left up to parents but there has to be an official government position. They can't just say "We don't know. Do it if you fancy it."
In the US the CDC is saying -COVID-19 Vaccines for Children and Teens
Although fewer children have been infected with COVID-19 compared to adults, children can:
*Be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19
*Get sick from COVID-19
*Spread COVID-19 to others
CDC recommends everyone 12 years and older should get a COVID-19 vaccination to help protect against COVID-19.So, pretty unequivocal, but I have no idea what take-up is like.
Using my feedback model I don't think the UK government is getting a clear enough positive feedback signal from the still anxiety-ridden public. Government priorities are to maintain electoral popularity & to be able to give a glowing account of themselves at the public enquiry. Dead children will be hard to explain and will require the strongest possible justification. Maybe they'll wait for the hospitals to fill up again AND impose another national lockdown THEN go for the kids. Or maybe they simply won't do it. This mundane report from inews (5th July) sets out the UK establishment positions on child vaccination quite clearly I think. https://inews.co.uk/news/health/under-18s-vaccinated-when-covid-vaccine-children-get-jab-schedule-debate-explained-1083262
