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There are a couple of problems we - you and me - have to face when looking at this data. The first is bias. I am inclined to distrust all official sources including the ONS, whereas you (if not just playing the devil’s advocate) are inclined to trust them.
My distrust comes from having come to believe that pretty much the entire political establishment (which now includes the scientific establishment) is corrupt and locked into not incriminating itself in front of the public - (those of the public who care - which is another sub-point we could get into). I noticed it when I was observing the SPKC website, which would - in a darkly comical manner - remove data when it became inconvenient - or ‘problematic’.
But let’s look at the ONS data, which in the previous report had begun to show problematic numbers, which many of us sceptical of the official safe-and-effective line believed necessitated a long delay in the publication of the next report.
The first main issue is what seems to be evidence of - again - underestimating the number of unvaccinated as once more we have the odd phenomenon of higher non-Covid mortality in the unvaccinated than in the fully vaccinated.
There are four possible explanations for this:
1. Misclassifying vaccinated death as unvaccinated death.
2. Underestimating the total number of the unvaccinated.
3. People who take the vaccines being healthier than the unvaccinated in general.
4. The vaccines are a wonder drug.
My thoughts on these four:
1: Misclassifying vaccinated death as unvaccinated death.
I won’t make this claim. Although I will say here is some debate about it. The head of Mortality at the ONS, Sarah Caul, wrote that they don’t have the number of people who died shortly after the first jab but were counted as unvaccinated. I suppose it might be a big number - but it might just as well be insignificant.
2: Underestimating the total number of the unvaccinated.
Once again, we have higher levels of non-Covid deaths in the unvaccinated population. Let’s take March 2022 for ages 50-59 as an example (I looked at this month as I saw a blog post about it, but I checked other months and age groups and the same phenomenon was evident).
Table 2: Row 2616
Unvaccinated deaths = 193 (in the previous report March 2022 showed just 119 deaths)
Person Years = 38,022 (as opposed to 37,284 in the previous report)
ASMR/100,000 person years = 512.5 (as opposed to 320.5 in the previous report)
3rd Dose > 21 days deaths = 1,4208 (as opposed to 1,097)
Person Years = 507,092 (as opposed to 448,449)
ASMR/100,000 person years = 277.8 (as opposed to 240.6)
This is for non-Covid deaths. It’s a big difference. In fact it is bigger than in the previous report (512.5/277.8) as opposed to 320.5/240.6)
We can calculate - more or less - the number of unvaccinated as a percentage by dividing the person years of this group for this month (38,022) by the total of all the person years for the unvaccinated and vaccinated cohorts (614,507). It comes out at 6.18%
So the ONS are using the figure of 6.18%. This is the percentage of the unvaccinated 50-59 year olds in March 2022 in the UK.
We can check that with the UKHSA (The UK Health Security Agency). In their Week 13 Covid-19 vaccine survey report published on March 31st 2022, you can see on Page 17 the cumulative vaccine uptake by age. The number of 50-59 year olds who had had a vaccine by March 2022 was a stable 85-87%.
Which leaves an unvaccinated percentage of 13-15%, not 6.8%.
As I say, I read this in a blog, so I decided to try another month and age group.
I chose 18-39 year olds for Feb 2022 (again non-Covid deaths) as these were one of the few cohorts as in the previous report that actually had a higher mortality rate for non-Covid deaths among the vaccinated (see Table 2 Row 2308): ASMR/100 person years of 21 as opposed to 29.4 for the 3rd dose or boost + 21 days cohort.
That changed in this report: the unvaccinated ASMR/100,000 person years now stands at 48.9, while the boosted + 21 days is at 34.1.
We see the same thing: The ONS has the unvaccinated percentage at (by my calculations) 18.3%.
My distrust comes from having come to believe that pretty much the entire political establishment (which now includes the scientific establishment) is corrupt and locked into not incriminating itself in front of the public - (those of the public who care - which is another sub-point we could get into). I noticed it when I was observing the SPKC website, which would - in a darkly comical manner - remove data when it became inconvenient - or ‘problematic’.
But let’s look at the ONS data, which in the previous report had begun to show problematic numbers, which many of us sceptical of the official safe-and-effective line believed necessitated a long delay in the publication of the next report.
The first main issue is what seems to be evidence of - again - underestimating the number of unvaccinated as once more we have the odd phenomenon of higher non-Covid mortality in the unvaccinated than in the fully vaccinated.
There are four possible explanations for this:
1. Misclassifying vaccinated death as unvaccinated death.
2. Underestimating the total number of the unvaccinated.
3. People who take the vaccines being healthier than the unvaccinated in general.
4. The vaccines are a wonder drug.
My thoughts on these four:
1: Misclassifying vaccinated death as unvaccinated death.
I won’t make this claim. Although I will say here is some debate about it. The head of Mortality at the ONS, Sarah Caul, wrote that they don’t have the number of people who died shortly after the first jab but were counted as unvaccinated. I suppose it might be a big number - but it might just as well be insignificant.
2: Underestimating the total number of the unvaccinated.
Once again, we have higher levels of non-Covid deaths in the unvaccinated population. Let’s take March 2022 for ages 50-59 as an example (I looked at this month as I saw a blog post about it, but I checked other months and age groups and the same phenomenon was evident).
Table 2: Row 2616
Unvaccinated deaths = 193 (in the previous report March 2022 showed just 119 deaths)
Person Years = 38,022 (as opposed to 37,284 in the previous report)
ASMR/100,000 person years = 512.5 (as opposed to 320.5 in the previous report)
3rd Dose > 21 days deaths = 1,4208 (as opposed to 1,097)
Person Years = 507,092 (as opposed to 448,449)
ASMR/100,000 person years = 277.8 (as opposed to 240.6)
This is for non-Covid deaths. It’s a big difference. In fact it is bigger than in the previous report (512.5/277.8) as opposed to 320.5/240.6)
We can calculate - more or less - the number of unvaccinated as a percentage by dividing the person years of this group for this month (38,022) by the total of all the person years for the unvaccinated and vaccinated cohorts (614,507). It comes out at 6.18%
So the ONS are using the figure of 6.18%. This is the percentage of the unvaccinated 50-59 year olds in March 2022 in the UK.
We can check that with the UKHSA (The UK Health Security Agency). In their Week 13 Covid-19 vaccine survey report published on March 31st 2022, you can see on Page 17 the cumulative vaccine uptake by age. The number of 50-59 year olds who had had a vaccine by March 2022 was a stable 85-87%.
Which leaves an unvaccinated percentage of 13-15%, not 6.8%.
As I say, I read this in a blog, so I decided to try another month and age group.
I chose 18-39 year olds for Feb 2022 (again non-Covid deaths) as these were one of the few cohorts as in the previous report that actually had a higher mortality rate for non-Covid deaths among the vaccinated (see Table 2 Row 2308): ASMR/100 person years of 21 as opposed to 29.4 for the 3rd dose or boost + 21 days cohort.
That changed in this report: the unvaccinated ASMR/100,000 person years now stands at 48.9, while the boosted + 21 days is at 34.1.
We see the same thing: The ONS has the unvaccinated percentage at (by my calculations) 18.3%.
Nopūsties:
