Saturday 2 October 2021

Vaccine effectiveness

The COVID vaccines were supposed to be 90% effective against dying from COVID. Trouble is, there's lots of other things you can die of. According to statistics published by the ONS, you are more likely to die early if you have been vaccinated. Why this should be is another matter, but the stats seem fairly unequivocal. Analysis of the statistics by Norman Fenton and Martin Neil shows that the death rate of those who have been vaccinated is now far higher than we would expect for the time of year, even allowing for the skewing effect of age.

Unless, of course, someone sharper-eyed than me can spot a flaw in their reasoning.

6 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Their table 5 shows that after two doses, you are less likely to die*

It's the period between first does and second dose that looks dicey, that's when you are at higher risk of dying*

* Compared with being unvaccinated.

Bayard said...

I suppose that means that the gap between doses is long enough, that, if the vaccine is going to kill you, it will kill you before you've had your second dose, which is reassuring if you've had both, but not for the unvaccinated.

Sobers said...

My thinking suggests 2 explanations, firstly that its something to do with the Delta variant. Its noticeable that the rise in vaccinated deaths occurs at the very point the Delta variant arrives in the UK - around weeks 13-15 (ie the beginning of April onwards). Its possible that an ADE type reaction is occurring and the vaccinated are more susceptible to death when they get infected by the Delta variant, not necessarily from covid itself, but other forms of death, such as heart attacks or strokes etc.

The second idea that suggests itself is that the correlation between death rate rising and Delta variant arriving is a coincidence, and instead there is some delayed reaction to the vaccine that causes non-covid death rates to spike among the vaccinated around 3 months after their vaccination date. Given the spike proteins that the vaccines create in the body are known to cause blood clots (and immediate death in some people) is it beyond the realms of possibility that in the majority of people their reaction to the clotting effect is slower than those who die immediately, but over time the risk rises of a significant clot occurring and this then feeds into more deaths from circulatory illnesses? I think there has been data released during the summer that showed that deaths from heart attacks and strokes etc (ie circulatory causes) were running well above normal levels for the time of year. This would tie in with there being a longer term risk of death from the vaccines.

This article in the Times documents the 25% rise in heart related admission in one Scottish specialist heart unit in May, June and July this year [paywalled]:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mystery-rise-in-heart-attacks-from-blocked-arteries-m253drrnf

Bayard said...

S, if the body chemistry of certain people was such that they were effectively allergic to the vaccine (not beyond the bounds of possibility) but that the allergy manifested itself in a way that wouldn't necessarily be obviously related to COVID, then that would fit the statistics perfectly: the gap between the two doses would mean that all those with an fatal adverse reaction have it before they get the second dose.

Anomalous Cowshed said...

Risk assumptions in the general population between the two doses. Hysteresis, in that after the first dose, people reverted to pre-lockdown behaviours.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, "the gap between the two doses would mean that all those with an fatal adverse reaction have it before they get the second dose"

That does seem very plausible. Anyway, I've had Covid and both jabs so not of concern to me :-)

AC, Dr John Campbell (YouTube Covid guru) also said this happened in Israel.