great analysis. could you re-run the analysis based on the vaccination rate in people 65+? If there is still no correlation, this would be really worrisome. But it's clear that vaccination rates in 30-year-olds or 15-year-olds will have no impact on mortality.
This assumes accurate diagnoses, and conceals the vaccine deaths in the 15-40 cohorts who are very unlikely to die from Covid. See the VAERS spike, deaths within 2 weeks of injection are counted as "UnVaxxed" and are either direct toxic injuries or result from the two weeks of immune system suppression after the shot.
One thing which will be significant is natural resilience to severe outcomes conferred by prior infection, including those whose infections were so mild the first time that they were not aware of ever being infected.
Yes, I would like to see if accumulated natural immunity is another piece of the puzzle. I need to think through the best way to approach this as it may be a shaky number to estimate for each county. We can look at how many "cases" a county has, but that will be influenced greatly by testing practices.
Hi, early on in the above you state you are looking at Covid deaths (whatever that phrase actually means). Later you just refer to deaths but am I right to assume you are looking at Covid deaths throughout?
I am going to be bold and suggest this is not that useful and it would in fact have been more interesting to look at all-cause differences (preferably separating different age groups).
This would get round the issue of "what is a Covid death?" and also would reflect possible increased mortality from that-which-cannot-be-mentioned.
This is important especially if (as seems likely) the mere presence of virus is less contributory to death in 21 than 20.
On the government's narrative we have a deadly pathogen circulating and vaccines have been incredibly effective in reducing mortality. If this doesn't feed through to substantially reduced all-cause mortality the burden shifts to them to explain WTAF is going on?
Hey Jonathan- Yes, everything is COVID deaths (updated post for clarity). I thought US all-cause deaths (at least at the level of detail I generally like) were always perpetually delayed in reporting, but I will look in to it. In terms of the issue of "what is a Covid death?", I hope that issue is ameliorated here by limiting my analysis to large counties (~500k population or more), where reporting is likely done fairly professionally and consistent with CDC guidance (however flawed that is). Also, since I am comparing a county with itself from the previous year, for the most part the reporting only has to remain consistent within that county. Does that make sense?
I see where you are coming from, but I still think there is an issue where as the variants gets milder, the probability of the virus being a significant contributor to death reduces.
So in other words, many of the Covid cases we are now seeing are simply from over-testing and finding the virus as an innocent bystander.
Since it's now endemic, this will continue until we stop obsessively testing.
You might find this an interesting piece which I co-authored:
"Difficult to trust the data" is a certainty. But we always make the best of what we have, and work to improve it. There is no perfect data. Investors rely on information to base decisions, but we assume it's all suspect. It's not particularly important, though, since most investments are more emotional than analytical. Which isn't really different from pandemic response.
great analysis. could you re-run the analysis based on the vaccination rate in people 65+? If there is still no correlation, this would be really worrisome. But it's clear that vaccination rates in 30-year-olds or 15-year-olds will have no impact on mortality.
Just posted a view using the 65+ population: https://inumero.substack.com/p/follow-up-on-winter-surge-analysis
There is somewhere between weak to no evidence that makes a difference, IMO.
This assumes accurate diagnoses, and conceals the vaccine deaths in the 15-40 cohorts who are very unlikely to die from Covid. See the VAERS spike, deaths within 2 weeks of injection are counted as "UnVaxxed" and are either direct toxic injuries or result from the two weeks of immune system suppression after the shot.
One thing which will be significant is natural resilience to severe outcomes conferred by prior infection, including those whose infections were so mild the first time that they were not aware of ever being infected.
Yes, I would like to see if accumulated natural immunity is another piece of the puzzle. I need to think through the best way to approach this as it may be a shaky number to estimate for each county. We can look at how many "cases" a county has, but that will be influenced greatly by testing practices.
Hi, early on in the above you state you are looking at Covid deaths (whatever that phrase actually means). Later you just refer to deaths but am I right to assume you are looking at Covid deaths throughout?
I am going to be bold and suggest this is not that useful and it would in fact have been more interesting to look at all-cause differences (preferably separating different age groups).
This would get round the issue of "what is a Covid death?" and also would reflect possible increased mortality from that-which-cannot-be-mentioned.
This is important especially if (as seems likely) the mere presence of virus is less contributory to death in 21 than 20.
On the government's narrative we have a deadly pathogen circulating and vaccines have been incredibly effective in reducing mortality. If this doesn't feed through to substantially reduced all-cause mortality the burden shifts to them to explain WTAF is going on?
Best
Jonathan
Hey Jonathan- Yes, everything is COVID deaths (updated post for clarity). I thought US all-cause deaths (at least at the level of detail I generally like) were always perpetually delayed in reporting, but I will look in to it. In terms of the issue of "what is a Covid death?", I hope that issue is ameliorated here by limiting my analysis to large counties (~500k population or more), where reporting is likely done fairly professionally and consistent with CDC guidance (however flawed that is). Also, since I am comparing a county with itself from the previous year, for the most part the reporting only has to remain consistent within that county. Does that make sense?
I see where you are coming from, but I still think there is an issue where as the variants gets milder, the probability of the virus being a significant contributor to death reduces.
So in other words, many of the Covid cases we are now seeing are simply from over-testing and finding the virus as an innocent bystander.
Since it's now endemic, this will continue until we stop obsessively testing.
You might find this an interesting piece which I co-authored:
https://dailysceptic.org/what-does-endemic-covid-look-like/
"Difficult to trust the data" is a certainty. But we always make the best of what we have, and work to improve it. There is no perfect data. Investors rely on information to base decisions, but we assume it's all suspect. It's not particularly important, though, since most investments are more emotional than analytical. Which isn't really different from pandemic response.