Covid-19 News

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    Finally we get the true number of vaccines deaths. Maine has a population of 1.3 mio. So this would give some 200'000 vaccine deaths for USA in the potus high load month only...

    And yet there is no sign of this in the excess deaths. Not in the U.S. or any other country. How strange! How did they manage to hide 200,000 deaths in the U.S.? One of W.'s fellow Death Cult fanatics claims that 225,000 to 1.4 million people have died in the U.S. this year from vaccines. Yet there is no trace of these dead people in any statistic! See:


    Evaluating claim in "peer reviewed" Toxicology Reports article vaccines kill 5 for every 1 save
    There a paper published in Toxicology Reports that included an analysis purporting to estimate causal vaccine deaths in the US claiming between 227,792 and…
    www.covid-datascience.com


    QUOTE:


    Could the winter 2020 spike be caused by misattributed vaccine deaths as [the Death Cult] might claim? Well, this spike in excess deaths started increasing precipitously in November 2020 and reached its peak in early January, when vaccinations had just started, and then sharply declined in January and February as vaccinations of seniors and other vulnerable members of society were ramping up. And then this lull of the lowest weekly excess death numbers of the pandemic kicked in from March through July, the time period during which most vaccinated USA residents received their inoculations, before increasing again in late July and early August as the Delta surge kicked in (also a time with very low daily inoculation rates).


    Where would all these hundreds of thousands or millions of purported vaccine-induced deaths be hiding?

    Quote from Fm1

    And yet it was FDA approved. So how was the FDA fooled into saying that it's an easy and effective treatment ?

    I can explain that. The FDA is staffed by people. Not omniscient Gods. People make mistakes. Even the most talented, smartest, most skilled professionals sometimes make mistakes.


    That's all there is to it.

    Do they take your phone bill at the grocery store when buying beer?

    Quote from JedRothwell

    I can explain that. The FDA is staffed by people. Not omniscient Gods. People make mistakes. Even the most talented, smartest, most skilled professionals sometimes make mistakes.


    That's all there is to it.

    All to forgiving when it comes to life and death decisions by so called experts for my taste! Maybe the unvaccinated just made a mistake! Do you forgive them?

    Group of Physicians Letter to Alabama’s Governor: Please Reject Vaccine Mandates


    Group of Physicians Letter to Alabama’s Governor: Please Reject Vaccine Mandates
    Recently a group of physicians representing various conservative groups sent a letter to Alabama’s Governor Kay Ivey, arguing that the vaccine mandates
    trialsitenews.com


    Recently a group of physicians representing various conservative groups sent a letter to Alabama’s Governor Kay Ivey, arguing that the vaccine mandates declared by POTUS last month are “illegal, unsafe and immoral.” The group’s argument is based on 6 criteria that must be in place to mandate a vaccine according to a piece in the New England Journal of Medicine. The physicians share with Gov. Ivey that “two of these criteria have definitely not been met.” The doctors also share their opinion that the original goal of mass vaccination, that is to achieve global herd immunity won’t be possible with the current products on the market and given the unfolding conditions.


    Vaccine mandates have triggered an avalanche of concern as well as growing legal conflict such as lawsuits and what appears to be labor strife. From one point of view, this action represents an unprecedented encroachment on personal rights and liberties while conversely, governments must execute effective public health measures during a pandemic.


    Led by a group calling themselves Concerned Doctors, the authors in the letter last month made a formal plea to “release an executive order to prohibit all vaccine mandates.” This action would essentially mimic the move made recently by Texas Governor Greg Abbott as reported by TrialSite.


    While the physicians have generally been branded by the mainstream media as “Anti-vaxxers” that isn’t necessarily the case. Some of the authors have been staunch proponents of using off-label early care options such as ivermectin. While in parallel they have questioned some of the dominant narratives, or underlying assumptions associated with the mass vaccine response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, merely questioning what has become the dominant narrative can quickly be used by the mainstream media for ad hominem attacks.


    In the letter the doctors refer to six criteria that support vaccine mandates, pointing out that at least two of them haven’t been met. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine those six criteria for state-directed COVID-19 vaccination mandates include:


    Covid-19 is not adequately contained in the state.

    The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has recommended vaccination for the groups for which a mandate is being considered.

    The supply of vaccines is sufficient to cover the population groups for which a mandate is being considered.

    Available evidence about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine has been transparently communicated.

    The state has created infrastructure to provide access to vaccination without financial or logistic barriers, compensation to workers who have adverse effects from a required vaccine, and real-time surveillance of vaccine side effects.

    In a time-limited evaluation, voluntary uptake of the vaccine among high-priority groups has fallen short of the level required to prevent epidemic spread.

    Review the six criteria and consider your understanding of the evidence.

    Whether you are for the vaccine mandate or against—or somewhere in between—the collective viewpoints of care providers matter. Physicians, nurses, and other direct care providers are often not heard in this crisis as federal bureaucrats and politicians, academicians, and industry command much of the media’s attention. All must also understand the responsibility of the government to act during such a crisis.


    TrialSite suggests bringing the society closer together, rebuilding trust and cohesion moving forward with a more open, comprehensive, and holistic dialogue between care providers, researchers/scientists, the government, and others including industry and independent media. The more controversial and contentious elements associated with mass vaccination must be put on the table for open public debate. This could lead to less vaccine hesitancy, greater embrace of science, and an overall healthier socio-political and economic outlook. What follows is the physicians’ letter sent last month.


    Letter sent to the Governor

    Dear Governor Ivey,


    This letter is to request that you please release an executive order to prohibit all vaccine mandates. As a leader you know that during a crisis adapting to accurate new data is mandatory in order to be successful. We want to commend you for apologizing for shutting down the state in your WCOV interview. That example of acceptance of errors and corrective actions is essential in a crisis. Thank you.


    The mandates are illegal, unsafe, and immoral. An article in the New England Journal of Medicine June 26, 2020, outlines 6 criteria that must be met in order to mandate a vaccine. Two of these criteria have definitely not been met. One criterion that has not been met is that “available evidence about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine must be transparently communicate.” This clearly has not been done. The overarching principle that must be met is informed consent. Other criteria that have definitely not been met is “that the state must create infrastructure to provide compensation to workers who have adverse effects from a required vaccine, and real-time surveillance of vaccine side effects.” There clearly has not been a compensation program set up for injured employees and students and no real-time surveillance of vaccine side effects.


    These vaccines are claimed by the manufactures and government agencies to be both safe and effective. They are neither. Our research reveals the following about these vaccines:


    Herd immunity by these vaccines is unachievable.

    As Dr. Scott Harris correctly stated at the beginning of the vaccine rollout, the goal of vaccination is herd immunity. Sir Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told British lawmakers last month that with the Covid vaccines, the vaccinated are still able to be infected and transmit the virus. He states that vaccination induced herd immunity “is not a possibility”


    The vaccines do not prevent infection.

    In a recent interview, the Director of CDC, Dr. Walensky, stated that there have been tens of thousands of break-through cases. There are so many that they are now only recording the hospitalized and fatal breakthrough cases. CDC data shows 11,440 hospitalizations and 2675 deaths among the fully vaccinated.


    The vaccines do not prevent transmission.

    The vaccinated are spreading the infection. Infected vaccinated and unvaccinated have same viral load.


    The vaccines appear to have a short period of benefit.

    Pfizer has announced that the antibodies are waning at 6 months. A recent study from Japan shows that the Pfizer vaccine has already lost its neutralizing activity and infectivity is enhanced. Additional boosters will further enhance infectivity. This strongly suggest that within a few more months the vaccinated will get sick more often and more seriously than the unvaccinated.


    The vaccines are injuring and killing a historically large numbers of people.

    According to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), as of 9/3/2021 the vaccines are associated with 443,201 adverse events including 14,508 deaths, 18,439 permanent disabilities, 58,268 hospitalizations and 77,863 Emergency Department visits. Because of the difficulty of the VAERS reporting, it has been well documented that the VAERS system markedly underestimates the actual number and reports are delayed by months.


    The vaccines reduce the health of all vaccinated populations.

    A recent paper from the Trends in Internal Medicine demonstrated that when “all cause morbidity and mortality” is used as the endpoint instead of just COVD-19 mortality,” the data from the pivotal clinical trials for US COVID-19 vaccines indicates the vaccines fail to show any health benefit and in fact, all the vaccines cause a decline in health in the immunized groups.”


    The vaccines may be responsible for the new variants.

    French virologist and Nobel laureate, Luc Montagnier, MD, in May 2021 said he believes that the mass vaccination programs for Covid may actually be causing SARS-CoV-2 mutations, like the Delta variant, and thus, are prolonging the pandemic.


    Because of novel mRNA technology the long-term effects on autoimmune, neurodegenerative, cancer, and chronic diseases are unknown and may be devastating.

    These conditions may take years to develop but is a real concern. In an appalling and unheard-of action, the control arm of the pharmaceutical studies have been corrupted by vaccinating the control group. We will never know accurate safety data given this unethical action by the study collaborators.


    Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) from the vaccine could cause millions of deaths.

    In ADE, when animals or humans are given a vaccine and later exposed to that virus, the vaccinated then get sick and die in much larger numbers than the unvaccinated. This phenomenon happened in past with attempts to make vaccines against coronavirus, dengue fever virus, RSV and others. If this happens with these vaccines’ deaths will increase dramatically among the vaccinated.


    Liability.

    The pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the vaccines as well as the doctors, pharmacies, and hospitals that dispense them are free from all liability by the Prep Act. This in itself is frightening since it relieves them of all responsibility for the damages which are occurring from these vaccines. Citizens will incur overwhelming expenses from deaths and disabilities caused by these vaccines.


    So, if the vaccines cannot produce herd immunity, do not prevent infection, do not prevent transmission, the effects only last a few months, the vaccines are injuring and killing people, and the long-term safety is unknown, of what benefit are they? The only current benefit of the vaccine is that, for a short period of time, the vaccinated are being hospitalized less and dying less than the unvaccinated. That is all you hear in the media lately. This, however, appears to be temporary as the vaccine’s effectiveness wanes in 6 to 12 months. An example of this is West Virginia which over the last 8 weeks has seen a 26% increase in new breakthrough cases, a 21% increase in breakthrough cases requiring hospitalization and a 25% increase in breakthrough deaths.


    Countries that have vaccinated a larger percentage of their population sooner than the US are now experiencing large numbers of hospitalizations and deaths in the fully vaccinated. Data from the UK indicates that the vaccinated have 8 times the hospitalization and death rate of the unvaccinated. Gibraltar and Iceland with over 90% vaccinated are seeing huge spikes in Covid. Gibraltar has seen a 2500% rise in cases despite almost 100% vaccination.


    The FDA has approved these vaccines in individuals down to 12 years of age. Although the Delta variant infects children more than the original Covid virus, the risk to them of dying is still statistically zero, exponentially less than the flu. In the first 18 months of the pandemic there have only been 439 deaths in the less than 17 age group. The data from Israel indicates that those under age 20 have a 20 times greater chance of dying from the vaccine than from the pandemic. My calculations from US data for children under 17 years of age show a 12 times greater risk of dying or being permanently disabled from the vaccine compared to the virus. The only reason to vaccinate this age group was to prevent them from transmitting it to the “at risk” population. Now that we know that vaccination does not stop transmission, there is no reason to vaccinate the youth. It can only harm them.


    Our college-age young adults are also at risk for harm from the vaccines. There have been thousands of cases of pericarditis and myocarditis in this age group as well as numerous reports of Guillain-Barre, seizures, and transverse myelitis. If autoimmune, neurodegenerative, and other chronic diseases do occur as feared by prominent virologists, our young adults will be subjected to lifelong ill health. Possible permanent infertility is also a major concern for males and females. The 20–25-year age group is definitely low risk for Covid injury and death so vaccination would not be of benefit and could only harm them.


    Another untruth that is being propagated by the CDC and NIH is that “natural immunity is insufficient to prevent Covid recovered patients from getting the infection again.” The basis for this claim is that there are cases of people who have previously been “diagnosed” with Covid who have gotten sick again with Covid. The truth is they did not have Covid the first time. When the previous diagnoses were made, 40 cycle PCR tests were used to make the diagnosis. However, the data shows that any PCR test that uses more than 35 cycles only grows a virus 3% of the time. That means that the previous diagnosis of Covid was wrong 97% of the time. These individuals did not have Covid-19 the first time and therefore they are not reinfections. They simply had another virus, such as influenza.


    Natural immunity does work and we know that individuals who had SARS-COV-1 18-20 years ago are still immune today. A Harvard study done on Israeli data shows natural immunity is 27 times better than vaccine immunity at preventing symptomatic infection and 8 times better at preventing hospitalization. Two studies show that covid recovered patients have less than a 1% reinfection rate.31 These natural immune individuals are being encouraged to get a vaccination that they don’t need which exposes them to twice the risk of an adverse event compared to a Covid naïve individual. A study from the Cleveland Clinic (with 52,000 participants) demonstrates no benefit from vaccinating Covid recovered patients.


    The message from the CDC and Dr. Harris of the ADPH is that we will only defeat this pandemic when sufficient numbers of people are vaccinated. This message is incorrect for two reasons: 1) We have never been successful using a vaccine to end a pandemic which is caused by a virus that can live in animals. The coronavirus can live in cats, ferrets, raccoons, bats, and other animals. It is impossible to vaccinate all these animals. 2) Respiratory viruses mutate faster than vaccines can be produced. We are seeing this happening already and our vaccines are just putting selection pressure on the virus to mutate to more virulent strains.


    We have excellent prehospital treatments for Covid-19 including monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, and other FDA approved drugs, many of which are being suppressed and discouraged. Each of these have been used safely for decades and are suddenly labeled as unsafe. Dr. Peter McCullough estimates that the use of these suppressed and discouraged medications could have reduced deaths by 85%. Our group of doctors here in Alabama has treated over 4800 patients with only 25 hospitalizations and 2 deaths. Countries all over the world are using these repurposed drugs and supplements with great success. Their use would allow a more rational vaccination approach. We could vaccinate those who are at highest risk and those who desire vaccination.


    In light of the above data that clearly indicates that the vaccines are not safe, only temporarily effective, do not stop transmission, have completely unknown long-term safety, and this information is not transparently communicated, nor is there infrastructure set up for compensation of injured employees and students, with all the energy that we possess we urge you with all the energy we possess to issue an executive order to prohibit any and all vaccination mandates. No entity should be allowed to mandate a vaccine that is potentially lethal. We also respectfully request that prohibition of vaccine mandates be added to the call for the special session of the legislature September 27, 2021. Thank you!


    Sincerely,


    David K. Calderwood, MD


    Stewart H. Tankersley, MD


    David L. Williams, MD


    Noah E. Gudel, DO


    William H. Childs, MD


    Roger W. Kemp, MD


    Torey K. Herring, DO


    W. Ryan McWhorter, MD


    Michael W. Brown, MD


    John B. Cox, MD


    James H. Blanton, MD


    Larry W. Epperson, MD


    Barney A. McIntire, MD


    Scott B. Loveless, MD


    Pat Glover, MD


    Jordan F. Vaughn, MD


    Ace Austin, MD


    Richard N. Vest, MD


    Luke B. Fondren, DO


    Charles Lee, MD


    Joshua S. Meyer, MD


    Jennifer Meyer, MD


    Joseph Brewer, DO


    Shannon M. Stinson, MD


    Eagle Forum of Alabama


    Focus on America


    Physicians for Alabamians


    Concerned Doctors


    Team America


    https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2020926

    9m Observational Study Led By New York Dept of Health—Data Points to Targeted Booster Approach


    9m Observational Study Led By New York Dept of Health—Data Points to Targeted Booster Approach
    Researchers from the New York State Department of Health (NYSDH) recently uploaded the results of a study to the preprint server medRxiv. Based on
    trialsitenews.com



    Researchers from the New York State Department of Health (NYSDH) recently uploaded the results of a study to the preprint server medRxiv. Based on what NYSDH declared was a first-in-the-nation vaccine effectiveness study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in August, those study results explored the drivers behind the decline in vaccine effectiveness (“VE”)—that is, were the causes solely attributable to the vaccine(s), the Delta variant, or something else? The study concluded that declines in VE effectiveness for cases could have been triggered by the Delta variant or factors other than immunological waning, such as reduced use of masks. The study team found that VE for hospitalization continued to impress albeit “modest declines” associated with the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna) for the elderly (65 years of age and up). The study results supported targeted booster dosing rather than broad-based booster administration.


    Dr. Howard Zucker, a senior author and Health Commissioner, reported that this study, led by corresponding author Eli S. Rosenberg with the New York State Department of Health in Albany, is purportedly one of the largest, if not the largest, to investigate vaccine effectiveness over a period of time, segmented by the three different vaccines on the market.


    Zucker went on the record stating the study results “clearly demonstrate what we’ve been saying all along—getting a COVID-19 vaccine continues to be the best way out of this pandemic, and the best way for New Yorkers to prevent serious illness and hospitalization.”


    The Study

    The New York DOH scientists leveraged a previous study based on statewide linked immunization, laboratory testing, and hospitalization databases to quantify VE over time. Covering nearly nine million New Yorkers aged 18 and up, the study team investigated VE change by age, vaccine product, and month of inoculation.


    The study segmented cohorts such as vaccinated and unvaccinated and then looked at the groups by vaccination dates. For example, one cohort included vaccinated New Yorkers between January and April 2021. The investigators then examined their levels of newly diagnosed infections and hospitalizations for this cohort for the period May to August 2021. They also looked at how many of the vaccinated New Yorkers were diagnosed with infections and hospitalizations during this latter period and compared metrics for the unvaccinated during the same period.


    The Findings

    The study team notes that between the weeks of May 1 and August 28 decreases in VE against laboratory-confirmed infections were greatest for Pfizer-BioNTech (-24.6% for 18-49, -19.1% for 50-64 and-14.1% for 65 and older), and similar for Moderna (-18.0% for 18-49, -11.6% for 50-64 and – 9.0% for 65 and older) and Janssen (-19.2% for 18-49, -10.8 for 50-64 and -10.9% for 65 years of age and older).


    The study team noted that declines in VE for laboratory-confirmed infections occurred simultaneously across cohorts (age, product, and month of vaccination) during the weeks when the Delta variant rapidly increased. The New York State public health research team observed that the biggest decline was observed with BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine).


    Of note, as the Delta variant hit above 85% prevalence, changes in VE “plateaued” and indicated that New Yorkers who were vaccinated more recently had higher protection levels in some groups. They observed modest declines in VE for the elderly (65+).


    The authors describe in a press release that the observed declines in VE for infections occurred during the study time however they suggest this phenomenon could be associated with factors other than immunologic waning, such as the Delta variant to changes in COVID-19 prevention behaviors.


    Vaccine effectiveness was measured for preventing hospitalization. What follows are the results:


    Pfizer Pfizer-BioNTech Moderna Janssen

    65+ 95% to 89.2% 97.2% to 94.1% 85.5% to 82.9%

    18-64 Over 86% Over 86% Over 86%

    Principal Investigator Point of View

    Dr. Eli Rosenberg led the study and declared, “The findings of our study support the need for boosters in older people, and we encourage them to seek out a booster shot from their health care provider, pharmacy or mass vaccination site. We saw limited evidence of decline in effectiveness against severe disease for people ages 18 to 64 years old. While we did observe early declines in effectiveness against infections for this age group, this appears to have leveled off when the Delta variant became the predominant strain in New York. Together, this suggests that ongoing waning protection may be less of a current concern for adults younger than 65 years .”


    Limitations

    The authors point out that open cohort surveillance studies come with limitations. Unlike a controlled trial, it is impossible to rule out confounding factors. Is waning effectiveness due to an immunological reason, challenging new variants, or impacted by the way the population interacts, or even a combination of factors?


    The authors report that “Data is urgently needed to understand the magnitude and sources of changes in vaccine effectiveness across outcomes, products, and population subgroups, so as to inform public health policy and make recommendations.”


    About the New York Department of Health

    The New York Department of Health is the department of the New York state government responsible for public health. Health Commissioner Howard Zucker heads up the agency.


    Lead Research/Investigator

    Eli S. Rosenberg Ph.D.


    Howard A. Zucker, MD, JD


    Call to Action: TrialSite continues to monitor studies as they come online.


    COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness by Product and Timing in New York State
    Background US population-based data on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness (VE) for the 3 currently FDA-authorized products is limited. Whether declines in VE are…
    www.medrxiv.org

    Quote from Fm1

    Maybe the unvaccinated just made a mistake! Do you forgive them?

    I might forgive them, but nature does not. The virus does not care about your motivation or your politics. Without the vaccine it is much more likely you will get sick or die. Many unvaccinated people did make a mistake. Many were fooled by antivaxxer lies, such as this poor soul:


    Lorine Carol Kaylor, 48, Huntington, WV. Cashier at McDonalds. Unvaxxed, dead from COVID.
    UPDATE (10/12/21 5am): Added to the bottom of the story. According to this obituary Lori died on October 6 from COVID. She leaves behind Harold A. Kaylor, her…
    www.sorryantivaxxer.com

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    The week 39 UK vaccine report is overdue by 2 weeks now. Obviously the UK FM mafia feels some tremor now...

    It's not looking good for people over 40:


    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1023849/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_40.pdf


    Results

    The rate of a positive COVID-19 test varies by age and vaccination status. The rate of a positive COVID-19 test is substantially lower in vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated individuals up to the age of 39. In individuals aged greater than 40, the rate of a positive COVID-19 test is higher in vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated. This is likely to be due to a variety of reasons, including differences in the population of vaccinated and unvaccinated people as well as differences in testing patterns.



    Actually it's 30 and up :


    Quote from Fm1

    All to forgiving when it comes to life and death decisions by so called experts for my taste! Maybe the unvaccinated just made a mistake! Do you forgive them?

    Yes, because they are mislead by those with a serious agenda like TSN etc. Honest but arrogant people like you, FM1, who think you can judge experts according to your gut feeling, and who think somone like Ron Brown, with a consistent they are lying to you story, is an expert.


    It is difficult. Anyone can claim to be an expert. Some of the real experts are dramatically and weirdly wrong in areas slightly different from their speciality. And science can't foresee all of the future. Plastic mesh can get all messy when inside the body for too long and create trouble no-one expected. Mostly, majority opinion is right, occasionally wrong. When people who claim to be experts are talking smooth rubbish you may not have the past experience and skills (whether expert or no) to detect it.


    So if you don't trust mainstream expertise you are sunk unless you have necessary skills and do a lot of work - the outliers who disagree with mainstream will usually be wrong. If you trust mainstream they will occasionally be wrong. But, you know, scientists cannot always be right. They can attempt to be right more often than not. It helps that there are a lot of them, all with different agendas, all curious and willing to critique each other. With vaccine and medicine safety and regulation, in particular, every country has a different set of people who take the responsibility for this. And you can see different countries taking different decisions, showing when it is a judgement call.


    Do you understand why the antivaxxers only talk about numbers deduced from VAERS? Do you understand the error there? Have you looked at that self-controlled case study data that shows you how in any 28 day window a large enough sample of people will have every adverse sudden event known to man - just by chance? And you can bet that all of that illness (if serious e.g. leads to hospital) will be put into VAERS because no-one knows what might be the side effects of a new vaccine.


    You have multiple times posted TSN antivax propaganda making the same wrong point from VAERS. You have never posted the refutations that explain what is going on. Why so one-sided?


    The best data I know to understand how high is the background rate of adverse events similar to those that could be vaccine side effects is that self-control case study of 30M UK people which compared background and after COVID or after vaccine levels in the same people. It is an eye opener. It makes it very obvious that you get the background stuff as well as any extra side effect signal, and that the background level is relatively high. We have a 1 in 100 death rate annually (it is pretty obvious). That is a lot of deaths close to a vaccine shot if you vaccinate a few 100M people*. And many more non-death serious medical events.


    New COVID-19 vaccine warnings don't mean it's unsafe – they mean the system to report side effects is working
    Ongoing tracking is meant to spot very rare risks – like the connection between the Johnson & Johnson shot and Guillain-Barré syndrome. And it relies on public…
    theconversation.com


    [VAERS] can lead to two problems:


    First, not every reported adverse event is directly related to the vaccine. For example, many of the tens of millions of people who have received the Pfizer vaccine have likely experienced a sunburn. People might report that they experienced a sunburn to VAERS, but the vaccine has no effect on your skin’s ability to protect against the sun. VAERS is very clear that it “is not designed to determine if a vaccine caused a health problem, but is especially useful for detecting unusual or unexpected patterns of adverse event reporting.” Correlation does not imply causation.


    Second, a plausibly identified adverse event does not necessarily make the vaccine unsafe. According to CDC, there have been 100 preliminary reports of Guillain–Barré out of 12.5 million J&J doses, or 0.0008% of people who received the vaccine. Administering one vaccine to a huge sample of people can make it easier to identify a possible connection between the shot and a side effect. But that doesn’t mean the risk of getting that side effect is very likely, or that it outweighs the benefit of getting vaccinated.


    These risks, while real and potentially life-threatening, must be viewed in context with the much larger risk of negative outcomes from the diseases vaccines protect people from. For example, 1%-7% of patients who take cholesterol drugs called statins are likely to experience potentially harmful muscle injury. However, these drugs are still taken by millions of people because they are highly effective at preventing heart disease and stroke. And in the case of Guillain–Barré, about one in 100,000 people, or 0.001%, develop this condition yearly in the U.S. from any cause. By comparison, the U.S. has had more than 33 million cases of COVID-19, and over 600,000 deaths caused by this disease.


    Here is a great quantitative comparison from Australia of the two biggest known vaccine side effects blood clots (AstraZeneca) and myocarditis/pericarditis (Pfizer). Every country in the world has been tracking them in exquisite detail and getting only roughly similar data. Not surprising because how much very mild cases of any condition are picked up will vary from country to country.


    The rollout: The danger of vaccines vs the danger of COVID
    January 2021 witnessed the first national rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the UK. The good news was that it was 89% effective at protecting people from
    cosmosmagazine.com


    Do you really think that the people who do this work, independently, in many different countries, are all cooking the data? Or, do you think that a surveillance system that quickly picked up these two potentially nasty side effects would somehow completely miss other much larger ones?


    It makes zero sense. Yet that is what TSN antivax op-eds would have you believe, and that is what you have been uncritically posting here month after month.


    One way a non-expert can compare two apparent experts is to look at what gets missed out, and see whether it is important. Thus, on VAERS, the antivax stories miss out key context:

    • The difference between reporting on a new vaccine and reporting on an old, known safe, vaccine
    • The fact that VAERS must record all (or at least) most serious background events because they might be vaccine side efefcts, and the background event level is quite high


    When that context is added, it destroys the case.


    Whereas the mainstream stories generally leave out only the fact that COVID and side effects are both age-related. So if you do a comparative risk analysis you have to include age. But, the more detailed mainstream analyses include all that age-related stuff. They point out that when you subgroup a lot - e.g. male childen between ages of 12 and 13 or male childer between ages 12 and 13 with asthma as prior condition - you get much less accurate data because there are not enough people to smooth out the random background serious events. You can then, by subgrouping in a cherry picking way and ignoring this, just from random numbers make almost any database look alarming. But you can work out age-related trends and use them to determine risks at different ages. (Many mainstream accounts do not consider delta, or do not consider vaccine against delta 9 months after shot, because they use data 12 months old, publication times etc). that is something to watch and does make you think vaccine efficacy is being over-egged. It is not. it is just that things change - and variants, and time, always make vaccines worse).


    This stuff is at a level that most readers of this site, if they bother to read it and have open minds, can understand. It is how most readers, if they have enough time to spare, can see that the antivax "experts" are wrong. Their stories leave out significant details that the other side keeps, when you consider those details they break the antivaxxer case.


    The opposite way round it does not work. Sure there is lots more detail, but it is just detail, not something that contradicts the mainstream case.


    Here you can see how Wyttenbach's erroneous inferences from data happen - he leaves out necessary context, or in order to find some anomaly he takes small subgroups of data and does not look at the fine print warning of possible errors.


    If you set out to prove something you can find anomalies almost anywhere if you are willing to make basic statistical errors, and not read the fine print of the datasets you use.


    And there are a few real anomalies in any real-world data, mistakes, things not considered you never work out, etc. You watch them and if they ever make sense you have discovered some new error source in your data, or (alos possible) some new effect. You can't jump on such things and take them out of the whole context.


    The problem with social media is that almost no-one has the time to wade through this stuff and work out who is right. The antivaxxers will go on coming up with new erroneous arguments. If you are honest, they all take time and care to evaluate. Those evaluating must go by the book, consider all uncertainties, do it properly, and take an interest because there can be problems with vaccines, maybe there is something that has not been considered. The antivaxers like W can ignore all the other factors that complicate things like base rates and vulnerable get vaccinated effect and large sub-bands create erros effect, do a naive comparison of 2 figures, and claim it is obvious a vaccine is bad.


    THH


    * background deaths within 1 month of either of two vaccine shots given to 100M people (if shots are spaced 2 weeks apart): 6 weeks (window you look at) / 52 weeks (annual) * 1/100 * 100M = 115,000 deaths

    Quote from Mark U

    Results

    The rate of a positive COVID-19 test varies by age and vaccination status. The rate of a positive COVID-19 test is substantially lower in vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated individuals up to the age of 39. In individuals aged greater than 40, the rate of a positive COVID-19 test is higher in vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated. This is likely to be due to a variety of reasons, including differences in the population of vaccinated and unvaccinated people as well as differences in testing patterns.

    It is mainly the base rate fallacy. It is not possible elderly vaccinated people really are more likely to be infected than unvaccinated people. That would overthrow all of medical knowledge going back 200 years. It would be like demonstrating a magnet motor perpetual motion machine. It ain't going to happen.

    This is week 40 of the vaccine surveilance report that W was saying ONS were no longer publishing because it has bad data. Fail. It is published.


    But it does use bad data, and I'm not sure how they can fix it.


    The rate of COVID-19 cases, hospitalisation, and deaths in fully vaccinated and unvaccinated
    groups was calculated using vaccine coverage data for each age group extracted from the
    National Immunisation Management Service.


    ** Interpretation of the case rates in vaccinated and unvaccinated population is particularly susceptible to changes in denominators
    and should be interpreted with extra caution.


    Now, as soon as you get a footnote like that you can guarantee Mark U and other antivaxxers will not use extra caution!


    One problem is the unvaccinated rates that depend on very uncertain denominators - got from subtracting number of GP registrations in NIMS database from number of vaccinated people (which we know precisely). We do not anywhere directly know the number of unvaccinated. No-one has lined them up and counted them.


    Because unvaccinated over 40 are a minority any errors in the GP registration count will get magnified. (I don't know how much, I have not got exact subgroup population figures so do not know the likely subgroup errors)

    A second problem which Mark U and W here have never engaged with - the vulnerable get vaccinated effect. Within those bands the people who are more vulnerable (comorbidities etc) are more likely to get vaccinated.

    And a final problem: case rates rely on people getting tests. Given a typical mild infection I'd be willing to bet the unvaccinated (probably all believing a prior infection makes them immune, or being suspicious of authorities) are less likely to get recorded as tested than the vaccinated. Nowadays anyone can buy LFTs and use them at home, not reporting an infection.


    Infection efficacy is the most difficult figure accurately to estimate - and so the one antivaxxers most like!


    Finally there is the question mark U answered: is it bad for the vaccinated?


    Well, personally, no. For them what matters is protection against serious illness and death. Just suppose those figures for infection rates were correct! Even given the denominator problem those same figures show the vaccine providing at least 2X protection even at highest ages (80+). It is noticeable how the relative risk decreases as ages get higher: from 7X (50-59) up to 2.5X (80+). If you are Ron Brown you will look at absolute risk reduction. The absolute risk reduction goes up for all ages! higher ages have much higher rates and hence even though the vaccine provides less relative protection it provides more absolute protection.


    AR reduction:

    50-59: 9.5 / 100,000

    80+ 85 / 100,000


    One reason the figures get so much worse in terms of relative risk here is that older age groups were vaccinated earlier and this is + 7 months or so from last jab, where vaccine efficacy is reducing, more for old people than young.


    So - is this disappointing? - yes - it would be nice if those peachy-high efficacies close to the jab remained. Especially if you are 80+ the protection looks from this good, but not nearly as good as you would like.

    Is it better than originally expected? - yes - we did not even know we could get high efficacy from vaccines against original covid - let alone two major variants on.


    Are these report figures correct? I don't know. I strongly distrust the denominators which may be another reason efficacy appears to go down so much for higher ages! I distrust the confounding effects of how likely people are to get tested and report it. Antivaxxers don't trust authorities and even if they get tested will not likely report this. I'd like to do an age subgroup comparison for the last few weeks between vaccinated infections (from ONS infection survey data) and vaccinated cases, and the same for unvaccinated. (the uncertain denominator would cancel out). That would out the relative difference in likelihood that an infection gets counted as a case.


    Suppose that the better rates for unvaccinated are also partly because more of them have had a covid infection, which protects them better than a less recent jab. If jabs protect against infections early on you might get that effect a bit. Does it mean jabs are bad? No, because they give better protection for when you get that infection. Does it mean you should go to a COVID party 2 weeks after a booster? Ummm - not sure. You'd need to be brave.


    One of the joys of this pandemic is there is so much data, and the analysis is so interesting. When not annoyed by antivax rubbish here I think it is a very absorbing pastime trying to make sense of it all.

    Quote from Mark U

    In individuals aged greater than 40, the rate of a positive COVID-19 test is higher in vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated.

    in fact if you include 50% (more reasonably is 60%) infection protection then the rate for age 40..50 is almost 4x compared for unvaccinated this is almost an increase by 50% from the data 3 weeks ago!


    Now almost all age classes are affected! ADE, immune suppression. Now I would ring a bell - very loudly!


    So now we have 1000% prove that some CoV-19 vaccination leads to higher CoV-19 rates!

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    This is week 40 of the vaccine surveilance report that W was saying ONS were no longer publishing because it has bad data. Fail. It is published.

    Huh? As I recall W said it was two weeks late, not that it was never going to be published!

    And there it is, hot off the press as far as I know. Why was it late? No explanation given that I can see.

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    So now we have 1000% prove that some CoV-19 vaccination leads to higher CoV-19 rates!

    The good news is that the rates for death protection look quite stable. But these are very low for age 80+ anything between 0..30% and 20..40% for age group 70+ if we use real baseline data for vaccinated only. 50% are protected by an infection.


    Of course if we include the 75% natural protection we all have, then vaccine protection for people at risk, age 70...100 is negative.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Finally there is the question mark U answered: is it bad for the vaccinated?

    I had said :


    "It's not looking good for people over 40:"


    To clarify : I was referring to the data for people over 40, not people over 40.

    As far as I'm concerned, it's better for all of us if the healthy vaccinated get infected, and sooner rather than later.


    The data is not looking good for those who want to believe and promote the idea that getting vaccinated is stopping the spread of the virus. After all, that would sap the force of the vaccine mandate/passport agenda wouldn't it.

    How much VAERS data are under-reporting actual vaccination side-effects? In November 2020, a paper was published in the journal Vaccines looking specifically at the question of estimating underreporting rates for VAERs for anaphylaxis (and Guillain Barre syndrome) for 7 different vaccines. They compared VAERs reporting rates to incident rates in the Vaccine Safety Database (VSD) network as a reference. VSD is organized by the CDC consisting of 9 healthcare organizations, shown to be representative of the USA population in many key demographic categories. This study found anaphylaxis had an URR between 1.3x to 8x, depending on the specific vaccine.

    Quote from Zephir_AWT

    Vaccinated accounted for 82% of Covid-19 deaths, 69% of hospitalisations & 54% of cases in September according to official figures

    but U.S. Hospitals are now refusing to operate on individuals who are NOT vaccinated

    Those behind the push to pressure the unvaccinated into getting jabbed, are in a race to the bottom. Each seemingly trying to out- do the other in how dehumanizing, and cruel they can be. In this case, going so far as holding a life hostage, and few are even raising an eyebrow about it. This is just getting out of hand, with no bottom in sight.


    I have always read of that proverbial slippery slope, and for the first time in my life I think we are rapidly sliding into the Totalitarianism Orwell warned us about. All brought about by the pandemic. Maybe history will record that it was a virus released from a communist lab that was the final nail in the coffin for Western Civilization.

Subscribe to our newsletter

It's sent once a month, you can unsubscribe at anytime!

View archive of previous newsletters

* indicates required

Your email address will be used to send you email newsletters only. See our Privacy Policy for more information.

Our Partners

Supporting researchers for over 20 years
Want to Advertise or Sponsor LENR Forum?
CLICK HERE to contact us.