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Significance of Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated People Getting Hospitalized — Scientifically Dubious Reporting
Related: filters, health, SARS-CoV-2 aka COVID-19 aka Coronavirus, The Epoch Times, vaccination
What is the significance of more vaccinated people getting COVID and dying than unvaccinated people in at least two news reports today? Maybe not much, except bad analysis and bad communication.
You might have seen articles like the two further below.
Comparing infections/hospitalizations/deaths in vaccinated to unvaccinated people without further distinction is comparing apples to oranges in terms of scientific credibility.
To make a reasonably credible comparison, you’d need two reasonably similar cohorts—unvaccinated and vaccinated people of the same age and health conditions and similar social behaviors, gender, etc. All evidence strongly supports the Trump vaccines as protecting via reduced severity.
- Feeling protected, The Vaccinated are more likely to put themselves at higher risk everywhere (mingling with more people and more often).
- The Vaccinated are more likely to have access to more crowded events that unvaccinated people do not (eg. vax pass in some areas of the world).
- The Vaccinated are higher risk in general—vaccine priority was given to the highest risk people.
- On average, The Vaccinated have inferior health—they were prioritized for that reason. In particular an impaired immune system that might not have responded to the vaccine well (or at all), and thus would have defective/weak immune response to not only the vaccine, but the real deal.
- The earliest people vaccinated (also the most at risk) have the greatest waning of their antibody levels—weaker individuals with weaker immune response and with antibodies significantly declining from months ago.
- Among The Vaccinated, some had/have inherent immune issues (weak), which would have responded poorly (or not at all) to the vaccine and are thus more likely to be infected and more likely to be hospitalized.
- You cannot compare infections from among an unknown quantity. You cannot take a cluster of infections and compare that to a random sampling. You cannot compare dissimilar cohorts!
So I don’t yet see any reason to be fearful here, unless far more and more scientifically credible data appears that persuades towards the worst case scenario of antibody dependent enhancement.
The Epoch Times: 74 Percent of COVID-19 Cases From Massachusetts Outbreak Occurred in Fully Vaccinated People: Study
July 30, 2021
A COVID-19 outbreak in a Massachusetts county in July primarily occurred among vaccinated people, sparking fears that a variant of the CCP virus can impact that population more than other strains.
Of the 469 cases detected in Barnstable County, 74 percent occurred among the fully vaccinated, according to a new study published on Friday.
Genomic sequencing of 133 patients showed most of them were infected with the Delta variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
The bulk of the infected people did not require hospital care, but among the five that did, four were fully vaccinated.
...The data demonstrate “that Delta infection resulted in similarly high SARS-CoV-2 viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated people,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, said in a statement on Friday.
...
WIND: bad analysis, bad comparing (“74 percent”...) for reasons discussed above. The original study published by the CDC lists four “limitations”, all of which preclude concluding much. But the authors apparently fail to realize all the other confounding factors as discussed above.
Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 Infections, Including COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Infections, Associated with Large Public Gatherings — Barnstable County, Massachusetts, July 2021
The findings in this report are subject to at least four limitations.
First, data from this report are insufficient to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, including the Delta variant, during this outbreak. As population-level vaccination coverage increases, vaccinated persons are likely to represent a larger proportion of COVID-19 cases.
Second, asymptomatic breakthrough infections might be underrepresented because of detection bias.
Third, demographics of cases likely reflect those of attendees at the public gatherings, as events were marketed to adult male participants; further study is underway to identify other population characteristics among cases, such as additional demographic characteristics and underlying health conditions including immunocompromising conditions...
Finally, Ct values obtained with SARS-CoV-2 qualitative Tracing Collaborative conducted outreach to hospitality workers, an international workforce requiring messaging in multiple languages.
In other words, there could be many more undetected “breakthrough cases”.
Meanwhile, over in the UK...
EXCLUSIVE – Covid-19 deaths are rising and official data shows 87% of the people who have died were Vaccinated
July 29, 2021
A few weeks ago we noticed that Public Health Scotland were being very clever with the way they were presenting the data, in what seems to be an attempt to hide a shocking statistic in regards to Covid-19 deaths and the Covid-19 vaccine. Unfortunately for PHS, they weren’t quite clever enough, as their latest report has allowed us to uncover the shocking statistic that they were attempting to hide.
...However, of the unvaccinated population, 863 people have been hospitalised in the same time frame. Whereas of the fully vaccinated population, 763 people have been hospitalised in the same time frame.
This means that just 2.3% of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the unvaccinated population have resulted in hospitalisation. Whereas 5% of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the fully vaccinated population have resulted in hospitalisation. There is a slight flaw to this analysis in respect of there will be a lag between a confirmed case and hospitalisation, but even so this clearly shows that the jabs are not quite doing what they claim to do “on the tin”.
...
WIND: see points in introduction. “863 people have been hospitalised vs 763 people...” is like saying "I drove 5 and you drove 4", without specifying miles or kilometers (or hours!), but just comparing raw numbers. It does better in comparing among “the population” but that’s silly for reasons already discussed.
Breakthrough infections among staff at SF General Hospital, UCSF stir concerns
July 30, 2021
Dozens of fully vaccinated staff members at two San Francisco hospitals have developed COVID-19 over the past six weeks, almost all of them infected in the community — not on the job — as the delta-fueled fourth surge took off across the city.
Thirty-five staff members at San Francisco General Hospital are out sick after testing positive for the coronavirus, said Dr. Luke Day, chief medical officer. Three-quarters of them are fully vaccinated. Though that number makes up a small portion of the staff of 7,000, it’s about as many staff infections as were reported during the peak of the winter surge.
At UCSF, about 140 staff members — out of 35,000 total employees — have been infected since mid June, said Dr. Ralph Gonzalez, chief innovation officer for UCSF Health. About 80% of those who tested positive were fully vaccinated.
... But it’s clear the vaccines are still preventing most infections, Gonzalez said. “We’re still seeing a strong vaccine protective effect,” he said. “Instead of 140 cases (among staff), it would be 600 or 700 if you use the unvaccinated rate of infection.”
..
WIND: what’s the rate of infection for vaccinated vs unvaccinated? to omit mention of what percentage of the staff is vaccinated makes the numbers meaningless for any comparison. All we learn is that 3X as many vaccinated people got COVID (“75%” or 3 of 4). If the split were 50/50 for vaccinated/unvaccinated, that would be a damning indictment of the vaccine.
So is the vaccinated/unvaccinated ratio 2:1, 10:1, what is it? If it mimics the figures I've seen in the news of 30% non-compliance among healthcare workers (70% vaccinated), then it means that vaccinated people are being infected 3 / (70/30) = 1.28sX more than unvaccinated people (whatever the reasons might be, as discussed above).
Compounding the stupidity, Dr Ralph Gonzalez claiming what “would” happen based on assumptions (“would be 600 or 700...”) is either a blatant attempt to mislead, or evidence of scientific and math incompetence—assuming a rate of infection (bogus) vs looking at what exists (vaccinated vs unvaccinated staff ) and doing the grade-school math.
