Have you ever read a headline and thought to yourself, why? I was doing my due diligence researching headlines this morning to determine what to write about today. I noticed one headline – CDC Data: COVID-19 Vaccine Gives Stronger Protection Than Natural Immunity.
It grabbed my attention immediately. I had to know why this headline was selected. And in further analysis, it boils down to what data you choose and how you want to manipulate the statistics.
I have several academic degrees and have taught statistics at the college level for several years. I also worked in industries where my professional certifications required a detailed understanding of statistics and the proper way to interpret data.
The Data
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/coronavirus-vaccination-cdc/2021/10/29/id/1042587/. A report was printed in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the CDC – https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7044e1.htm?s_cid=mm7044e1_w – stating that the COVID-19 vaccination offers more protection than natural immunity against coronavirus. How could that be true? I read further.
The study reviewed over 7,000 people hospitalized with COVID-like illnesses were five times more likely to have COVID than the fully vaccinated. So what does that really mean? Lots of people are hospitalized with COVID-like symptoms!
Did they have COVID or not? Hospitals test everyone, and the data is public. If the diseases this group of over 7,000 did not have COVID, why are they being evaluated against a vaccine for COVID? That makes no sense to me.
The CDC further reported that this group had members who were unvaccinated and later contracted COVID. OK. I went to the published report to get the details necessary for me to know whether apples were being compared to apples or other fruit.
Details
Between January 1st and September 2nd, 2021, over 200,000 hospitalizations for COVID-like illnesses were identified. OK, why is that term, COVID-like, being used? Hospitals know when a person has COVID or not. Using the term COVID-like bothers me a lot. Many diseases have fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, headache, sore throat, congestion, nausea, diarrhea, trouble breathing, persistent pain or pressure in the chest, confusion, etc. So again, either they had COVID, or they did not!
Of these 200,000+ hospitalizations, around 70% (about 140,000) were hospitalized before the coronavirus vaccine was available based on age groups. That is nice to know. On the other hand, over half of this study group probably were not vaccinated. Moving on – COVID-19 testing was performed on two-thirds of the patients (over 94,000) with COVID-like symptoms.
In this last group, over 7,000 (almost 8%) had a COVID-test result before entering the hospital and were placed into two different categories, those who were vaccinated and unvaccinated and had tested positive for COVID-19.
Final Assessment
Now the test group has been whittled down to around 7,000 people who were tested and have confirmed cases of COVID-19. So why include all the other data and related statistics when it was not needed? Statisticians like to show off numbers and make educated guesses about data.
The final assessment – https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7044e1.htm?s_cid=mm7044e1_w – was that five percent of a larger vaccinated group (over 6,000) contracted COVID-19 a second time. Barely over a thousand in the unvaccinated group became infected a second time with COVID-19. OK, now there is something to chew on and think about seriously.
A group of people who had confirmed cases of COVID-19 was reinfected with the disease. This group happened to be those who were hospitalized, which is usually less than ten percent of all those with COVID-19. The vaccinated group also came down with COVID-19 – a breakthrough case of sorts since they were confirmed as having the virus, then vaccinated and then reinfected.
This is now a study of previously COVID-19 infected people of which some were vaccinated and became reinfected and another group who were never vaccinated and acquired COVID-19 a second time. The study implies that vaccinations provide more protection against reinfection than natural immunity. This data fits well for the time constraints of the study – January through September of 2021.
Vaccine Degradation
Since September of 2021, the vaccine has been proven to degrade over time and provide less than fifty percent protection from infection. Being fully vaccinated does not provide any protection as time flies. Many of the new infections (breakthroughs) are fully vaccinated people infecting other fully vaccinated people.
Sixty-two percent of Irish hospitalizations are breakthrough cases – https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/covid-19-ireland-62-fully-25066876. That is not the same as five percent reported previously for how protective coronavirus vaccines are. The difference is time. Vaccines offer protection during the first few months. After that, that protection level plummets dramatically. It cannot compare by any scale to those with natural immunity.
Sixty percent of Israeli citizens were breakthrough cases – https://ifunny.co/picture/becker-s-hospital-review-nearly-60-of-hospitalized-covid-19-UKxeDiWv8. Last week, twenty percent of hospitalizations in Vermont were breakthrough cases – https://vtdigger.org/2021/10/08/vermont-reports-283-new-covid-cases-and-4-deaths-updates-breakthrough-and-outbreak-stats/
One of the best examples of breakthrough infection is found in a recent article in the Baltimore Sun about a group of epidemiologists who were infected at a party. Eleven out of fourteen attending a dinner party became infected even though everyone was fully vaccinated. https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0804-breakthrough-covid-20210803-t32trfpiwzdf5okfar45f64whi-story.html
Conclusion
Months ago, the coronavirus vaccine worked well. We did not know that there was a fuse that caused the vaccine to whither away after six months or so. Data collected and compared early in the vaccination season will show that the vaccine is a powerful defender against infection. Let the vaccine wear out after several months (months after the initial distribution of vaccines), and the vaccines cannot effectively protect a person from infection.
I wrote this week that Israel is not allowing anyone to travel into its country unless they are inside a six-month window with the vaccine. If they have natural immunity, they must get vaccinated within that six-month window before arriving – https://wp.me/p4ztmz-1ur. Boosters are refresher courses of the original vaccine. You get a six-month update on your protection. Do you want to get a booster shot every six months for a disease that has 99% survivability? There is always the risk of complications occurring after multiple shots also.
The future looks bleak for herd immunity or any type of quick-term solution. Several countries have thrown in the towel and decided to live with the virus. Denmark, Singapore, Thailand, South Africa, and Chile – https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/16/world/covid-countries-opening-up-cmd-intl/index.html – are open with minimal COVID-19 restrictions. In some cases, the new case rate is meager. In other cases, like Singapore, the latest caseload is rising to record levels.
It is not the number of new cases but the number of hospitalizations that impact the health care system and the number of deaths. Do not confuse high or record-high new cases with a severe threat to society. The fully vaccinated people are passing the virus on to other fully vaccinated people, and we may soon see many more who have natural immunity.
Live Longer & Enjoy Life! – Red O’Laughlin – RedOLaughlin.com
“there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” Mark Twain
The bottom line is that the vaccine is not a vaccine – it does provide tremendous protection from being hospitalized but little protection from catching it.
Absolutely, undeniably agree.
thanks Red – Great information and interpretation.