Vaccines

PHE Data Confirms That New Infections Peaked and Dropped in the Unvaccinated Before They Did in the Vaccinated

Back in early July I noted that data from the ZOE Covid Symptom Study was showing that new infections in the unvaccinated were peaking and falling while those in the vaccinated were still surging.

This was not a phenomenon noted elsewhere and prompted questions about whether it showed that the vaccines were delaying infection, or whether it was primarily an age-based phenomenon. Unfortunately, before anyone was able to investigate further, within a couple of weeks ZOE had ‘updated‘ their methodology and in their new data the phenomenon had oddly disappeared.

PHE Data Confirms That New Infections Peaked and Dropped in the Unvaccinated Before They Did in the VaccinatedRead More

By Will Jones  /  8 August 2021 • 19.11
     
68 comments

Alarming Data from PHE Shows the Fatality Rate in the Vaccinated Under-50s is 57% Greater Than in the Unvaccinated

Yesterday I wrote about the new data from Public Health England that allows us to make a (rough) calculation of vaccine efficacy during the Delta surge. Using data from technical briefings 17 and 20 I calculated that vaccine efficacy against infection with the Delta variant in the over-50s was a disappointing 17%. Vaccine efficacy against mortality was a better (if lower than expected) 77%.

The Daily Expose also published a piece looking at the new PHE data and argued that it showed vaccination was actually increasing the risk of hospitalisation and death. Their analysis did not break the results down by age, however, and so did not take into account that most of the infections are in the young, who are less vaccinated, and most of the deaths are in the old, who are much more vaccinated. That’s why my analysis focused on the over-50s, and when you do that you find the vaccines reduced mortality during the Delta surge in that age group by around 77%.

The Daily Expose article helpfully drew attention to the fact that in a recently published document, the Government advisers on SAGE themselves appear to admit that the vaccines do not prevent infection and transmission. In paragraph eight, they write:

While we feel that current vaccines are excellent for reducing the risk of hospital admission and disease, we propose that research be focused on vaccines that also induce high and durable levels of mucosal immunity in order to reduce infection of and transmission from vaccinated individuals. This could also reduce the possibility of variant selection in vaccinated individuals.

This being the case, why is SAGE not advising the Government to cease all aspects of the vaccination programme based on the idea of reducing transmission and protecting others (vaccine passports, the coercion of young people, vaccination of children and so on) as its members clearly don’t believe that these things are backed up by sound scientific evidence?

Alarming Data from PHE Shows the Fatality Rate in the Vaccinated Under-50s is 57% Greater Than in the UnvaccinatedRead More

By Will Jones  /  8 August 2021 • 02.00
     
140 comments

Devastating New Data From PHE Shows Vaccine Effectiveness Down to 17% and No Reduction in Infectiousness – But Mortality Cut by 77%

Public Health England yesterday released their latest technical briefing on the variants of concern, number 20, and it has some illuminating data.

It provides us with the infection, hospitalisation and death rates for the Delta variant, broken down by vaccination status and age. This allows us to do a calculation of the real-world vaccine effectiveness in the over-50s during the Delta surge, albeit a rough one without any adjustments.

The latest report has data up to August 2nd. If we substract from these values the data in Briefing 17 (up to June 21st) then we get the data covering the period June 22nd to August 2nd, which broadly corresponds to the bulk of the Delta surge in the U.K. The vaccine rollout to the over-50s was basically complete by this point, having stabilised according to PHE at around 88% double vaccinated and 10% unvaccinated (the other two per cent remaining single vaccinated, perhaps due to a bad reaction to the first dose).

In this period the PHE data tells us there were 2,464 Delta cases in the unvaccinated over-50s and 17,926 in the fully vaccinated over-50s. From this we can estimate the vaccine effectiveness against infection in the over-50s during the Delta surge as 17% (1-[(17,926/88%)/(2,464/10%)]). This confirms using additional data the estimate I made last week.

We can make a similarly rough calculation of the vaccine effectiveness against death. Between June 22nd and August 2nd, PHE reports that among the over-50s there were 339 deaths with the Delta variant in the double vaccinated and 167 in the unvaccinated. Using the same proportions vaccinated and unvaccinated as above, this gives a vaccine effectiveness against death in the over-50s during the Delta surge of 77% (1-[(339/88%)/(167/10%)]). Interestingly, this is very similar to the latest estimate of vaccine effectiveness against serious disease from Israel, which is around 80%. This is a decent level of protection and helps explain why the Delta surge had proportionally fewer hospitalisations and deaths, but it is well below the levels suggested by earlier studies and quoted by PHE, which are north of 95%.

Devastating New Data From PHE Shows Vaccine Effectiveness Down to 17% and No Reduction in Infectiousness – But Mortality Cut by 77%Read More

By Will Jones  /  6 August 2021 • 23.51
         
198 comments

Public Health Scotland Adds 85 Unvaccinated Deaths in a Week as it “Updates” its Reporting

Last week I reported on the latest data from Public Health Scotland (PHS), which showed that 87% of the deaths added in the most recent week (July 9th-15th) were in the vaccinated (one or two doses) and 74% were in the double vaccinated. I estimated from this that the vaccine effectiveness against death was a surprisingly low 46%, though acknowledged that this was a very crude estimate based only on one week’s data.

This week’s update is now out from PHS, and the data is surprising to say the least. Whereas in the week July 9th-15th, 38 deaths were added, only five of which were in the unvaccinated, just one of those aged over 70, in the week July 16th-22nd, 141 deaths were added, 85 of them in the unvaccinated, 78 of those aged over 70. This kind of change from one week to the next is obviously anomalous and presumably reflects some kind of reporting artefact.

Indeed, it turns out that PHS announced an update to their COVID-19 reporting on July 28th, which they said would be reflected in this week’s report and would include a “one off increase in reported deaths”.

This means we can discount the weekly change implied by this week’s report and resume our effort to deduce the vaccine effectiveness against death from next week.

By Will Jones  /  5 August 2021 • 22.46
       
19 comments

Latest Imperial REACT Report Finds Vaccine Effectiveness Could Be As Low as 22% – and Under-64s Are at Greater Risk of Hospitalisation Than Before the Vaccines

The report from round 13 of Imperial College’s REACT-1 Covid infection survey was published yesterday, covering the period from June 24th to July 12th, broadly corresponding to the Delta surge.

The press release led with the claim that “double vaccinated people were three times less likely than unvaccinated people to test positive for the coronavirus” (0.4% vs 1.2%). This is clearly misleading as an indication of vaccine effectiveness, however, as younger people were both less likely to be vaccinated and more likely to test positive. As the report itself admits: “These estimates conflate the effect of vaccination with other correlated variables such as age, which is strongly associated with the likelihood of having been vaccinated and also acts as a proxy for differences in behaviour across the age groups.”

Presumably, the headline was chosen by a politically savvy communications officer who did not want to draw attention to the fact that the study found a lower vaccine effectiveness than other studies such as those of Public Health England.

It found a vaccine effectiveness (vaccine type unspecified) among 18-64 year-olds of 49%. However, the 95% confidence interval ran from 22% to 67%, meaning the authors didn’t have enough positive test results to be very sure of their estimate (despite testing nearly 100,000 people, only 527 results or 0.54% came back positive). They couldn’t even be very confident it wasn’t as low as 22%.

Latest Imperial REACT Report Finds Vaccine Effectiveness Could Be As Low as 22% – and Under-64s Are at Greater Risk of Hospitalisation Than Before the VaccinesRead More

By Will Jones  /  5 August 2021 • 00.50
         
51 comments

America’s Delta Surge

New Covid infections are surging in America, driven by the Delta variant. The states which reopened in the spring, such as Texas, Mississippi and Georgia, and defied the predictions of catastrophic exit waves, are now seeing surges. Florida, too, which reopened last autumn, is seeing a spike in infections, and hospital admissions are rising.

Reuters

Reuters takes a look at how states are responding – which is by doing remarkably little, with the appetite for restrictions even in Blue states now that the vaccines are rolled out seemingly much lower than in previous outbreaks.

America’s Delta SurgeRead More

By Will Jones  /  4 August 2021 • 00.43
         
157 comments

Vaccine Safety Update

This is the tenth of the regular round-ups of Covid vaccine safety reports and news compiled by a group of medical doctors who are monitoring developments but prefer to remain anonymous in the current climate (find the ninth one here). By no means is this part of an effort to generate alarm about the vaccines or dissuade anyone from getting inoculated. It should be read in conjunction with the Daily Sceptic‘s other posts on vaccines, which include both encouraging and not so encouraging developments. At the Daily Sceptic we report all the news about the vaccines whether positive or negative and give no one advice about whether they should or should not take them. Unlike with lockdowns, we are neither pro-vaccine nor anti-vaccine; we see our job as reporting the facts, not advocating for or against a particular policy. The vaccine technology is novel and the vaccines have not yet fully completed their trials, which is why they’re in use under temporary and not full market authorisation. This has been done on account of the emergency situation and the trial data was largely encouraging on both efficacy and safety. For a summary of that data, see this preamble to the Government’s page on the Yellow Card reporting system. (Dr Tess Lawrie recently wrote an open letter to Dr June Raine, head of the MHRA, arguing that: “The MHRA now has more than enough evidence on the Yellow Card system to declare the COVID-19 vaccines unsafe for use in humans,” a claim that has been “fact checked” here.) We publish information and opinion to inform public debate and help readers reach their own conclusions about what is best for them, based on the available data.

  • There have been international reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines in Indonesia (reporting the deaths of 131 health care workers post Sinovac vaccine), India and Canada (reporting 22 cases of heart inflammation).
  • Further reports of Bell’s Palsy developing following vaccination, including a featured case report in the BMJ. Immunologist Dr. J. Bart Classen has written in the Journal of Medical – Clinical Research & Reviews on the risk of Parkinson’s disease following Covid vaccination, especially AstraZeneca (summarised here).
  • A study in the Lancet suggests that antibody responses wane rapidly and are low within two months of vaccination (though the authors note that protection via cellular immunity may remain).
  • A report on ‘breakthrough’ cases from NBC Boston, reporting 5,100 cases in Massachusetts and 80 subsequent deaths. 
  • The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has said that it supports the recommendations of the JCVI on not vaccinating children below the age of 18 unless they have underlying health conditions.
  • The inventor of mRNA technology, Dr. Robert Malone, has spoken of his fear that current data shows a worrying trend of possible ADE (Antibody-Dependent Enhancement) as the vaccine may cause the virus to be more dangerous in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated.
  • Lawyers have warned that ‘ethical veganism’ is a protected belief that would be among those that would have to respected in any effort to introduce mandatory vaccination in workplaces, the Telegraph reports. 
  • Chief Midwife for England, Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, has penned a letter to midwives, obstetricians and GP practices, asking them to recommend COVID-19 vaccines to pregnant women.  This follows some surveillance data that suggests some increased risk to pregnant women from the Delta variant. A study interim report published in the New England Journal of Medicine concludes that while 13% of the 827 vaccinated women in the study suffered a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage), this is not an elevated number. Dr. Peter McCullough has written in TrialSiteNews detailing some serious concerns with the study, stating: “The effect of the vaccines on early pregnancy losses (<20 weeks) is concerning and remains to be determined.” To date the Yellow Card system has reported 600 adverse events relating to pregnancy conditions including 10 deaths and 381 spontaneous abortions.
  • A Spanish preprint study in the Lancet suggests that the safety profiles of Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines are similar in terms of blood clotting. It also suggests that the risk of blood clotting is greater for those infected with SARS-CoV-2.
  • A preprint study in Medrxiv reports no difference in viral loads when comparing unvaccinated people to those who have ‘breakthrough’ infections post-vaccine, suggesting “that if vaccinated individuals become infected with the Delta variant, they may be sources of SARS-CoV-2 transmission to others”. 
  • Report in the Telegraph that AstraZeneca may end its future development of vaccines after offering its COVID-19 vaccine at cost to contribute to the pandemic effort. Pfizer, on the other hand, has reported record profits and is discussing increasing the costs of booster shots, according to the Guardian.
  • Statistician Mathew Crawford has argued that the CDC’s definition of a safety signal prevents it from picking up safety problems with the Covid vaccines, essentially because it compares the Covid vaccines to one another rather than to an established baseline.
  • VAERS – the American version of the Yellow Card reporting system – released new data on July 23rd bringing the total to 518,581 reports of 2,426,531 adverse events following Covid vaccines, including 11,940 deaths.
  • EudraVigilance – the equivalent of the Yellow Card reporting system in the EU – has logged (up to July 31st) 779,048 reports of 1,940,012 adverse events, including 20,595 deaths.
  • Suspected adverse events in the U.K. as reported in the media: Gemma O’Shea (35); Natalie Simpson (38).

Summary of Adverse Events in the U.K.

According to an updated report published on July 21st, the MHRA Yellow Card reporting system has recorded a total of 1,102,228 events based on 331,240 reports. The total number of fatalities reported is 1,517.

  • Pfizer (20.4 million first doses, 12.9 million second doses) now has one Yellow Card in 215 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 43,777 people vaccinated (466).
  • AstraZeneca (24.7 million first doses, 23.2 million second doses) has one Yellow Card in 110 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 24,263 people vaccinated (1,018).
  • Moderna (1.3 million first doses, 0.3 million second doses) has one Yellow Card in 118 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 162,500 people vaccinated (8).

Vaccine Safety UpdateRead More

By Will Jones  /  2 August 2021 • 22.42
         
29 comments

Doesn’t It All Seem So Very Odd?

There follows a guest post by retired dentist Dr. Mark Shaw on the strangeness of this ongoing ‘pandemic’.

I was booked in for a telephone consultation with a new representative from my pension company recently.  We introduced ourselves and somehow couldn’t avoid the subject of Covid. I didn’t want to get too involved in a potentially awkward discussion but couldn’t hold back from highlighting the illogic in so much of the Government’s response to the disease. I sensed he too wanted to remain neutral so it was both a relief and quite surprising to hear him respond with: “I have to agree – it all does seem so very odd.”

Do I sense a point in time, a turning point, now where more and more people are thinking the same?

In the last 18 months:

Doesn’t It All Seem So Very Odd?Read More

By Will Jones  /  31 July 2021 • 01.05
       
142 comments

Why Isn’t It “All Over Bar the Shouting”? Why Aren’t We Back to Normal Yet?

Positive Covid tests as reported by Public Health England declined again yesterday to 29,622 after two days of going up a bit. ONS data, also out yesterday, confirmed that infections have peaked and declined in the past 10 days among people over 16 – though, unexpectedly, also showed a surge among the under-16s that appears not to have been picked up by PHE. Is this because parents have stopped testing their children and reporting it to PHE now school is out and holidays are approaching? Some have suggested the ONS is picking up ‘cold positives’ from old infections. Either way, all eyes are on the data to see what will happen next.

But should they be? After all, what now are we waiting for? All the vulnerable and more are vaccinated, and the vaccines appear to give a decent enough protection from serious disease and death. Or even if they don’t, there’s nothing more that can be done, so we might as well go back to normal anyway and the virus will do whatever it does, and the vaccines will do whatever they do.

With all our delaying of lifting restrictions – planning to take an indefensible four months over it and in the event taking five, and then doing it half-heartedly, leaving strongly-worded guidance in place – it’s hard to believe that Florida ended all statewide restrictions in autumn 2020 and Texas and some other states did so in spring 2021. They saw no new surge after the winter – not until Delta arrived in the last few weeks, suggesting that it’s not lifting restrictions that causes surges (and thus it wasn’t imposing them that ended them) but new variants, presumably due to their partial immune evasion temporarily disrupting herd immunity.

But even so, Delta has shown that it’s nothing much to be afraid of, with the U.K.’s infection rate dropping following the lifting of restrictions on July 19th, having peaked by specimen date on July 15th at 60,665 positive tests. Scotland peaked over two weeks earlier at the end of June.

What more, then, is the Government waiting for? The only reason we were given for still being cautious was uncertainty over the threat from Delta, with Government advisers issuing warnings in the run-up to ‘Freedom Day’ of massive waves of infections and hospitalisations. We now know that this didn’t happen. Even if reported infections don’t continue to drop like they have in the last fortnight, we know that the threat was greatly overblown and the doomy models (which have always exaggerated the risk, as Sweden and South Dakota attest) can’t be trusted.

Why Isn’t It “All Over Bar the Shouting”? Why Aren’t We Back to Normal Yet?Read More

By Will Jones  /  31 July 2021 • 00.21
       
48 comments

Is Christopher Snowdon an Anti-Vaxxer?

Christopher Snowdon is plainly an anti-vaxxer, however well he tries to hide it. “Existing Covid vaccines are simply not good enough at preventing transmission and infection,” he writes. Hasn’t he read the trial results, showing 95% efficacy against infection for the Pfizer vaccine and 74% for the AstraZeneca vaccine? Or the large population study from Israel showing Pfizer’s 92% efficacy? Or the study from Public Health England showing 67% and 88% vaccine efficacy against the Delta variant for AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines respectively?

On what does he base his bald assertion that they are “not good enough at preventing transmission and infection”? Clearly not the science. He doesn’t appear to feel it necessary to give a single scientific reference for a claim that flies in the face of all these respectable studies, leaving the baffled reader assuming he must have picked it up in some article he read on an obscure website somewhere, presumably by a pseudo-scientific sceptic in denial.

This, of course, is not the way to go about intelligently criticising someone’s viewpoint. Which is precisely my point. As it happens, I agree with Christopher that the current vaccines are not very good at preventing infection or transmission, particularly now the Delta variant is in town. But I’m also aware that that is not the current mainstream scientific position (though it is based on recent official data and reports). Rather, it is currently a claim being circulated among the very networks that Christopher pillories in his recent piece in Quillette, naming and shaming the “coronavirus cranks”.

It seems, then, that Christopher is not averse to a spot of ‘crankery’ himself. But how helpful really is all this name-calling, mudslinging and smear by association? Science does not advance by consensus, by everyone agreeing, or by closing down dissenters. Christopher himself is evidently sceptical of one of the key mainstream vaccine claims – that they are highly effective against infection and transmission – so inadvertently places himself within the ambit of his own polemic. Indeed, at one point he fires a shot at the ‘smileys’, as he calls sceptics, for being sceptical of the vaccines, arguing the jabs “have been tested in clinical trials and have demonstrated their safety and effectiveness beyond reasonable doubt in recent months”. Yet he himself goes on to doubt their effectiveness!

Is Christopher Snowdon an Anti-Vaxxer?Read More

By Will Jones  /  30 July 2021 • 00.11
         
49 comments