Following up on "Vaccine accelerating Omicron infections" in UK
In the 1st week of 2022, I posited the hypothesis that data from the UK might be indicating that vaccines were accelerating the number of Omicron infections:
The chart used to support this showed that for all age groups, the number of infections per 100K people among the double-dosed rose much faster in the closing weeks of 2021 than did the infections among the Not Vaccinated. In most age cohorts, the double-dosed had higher rates of infections by the end of 2021. Reader Witzbold asked this morning if I could follow up to show what has happened since January. The major change since the last post is that the UKHSA Reports started reporting rates/100K on the not vaccinated & the triple-dosed, but not the double-dosed. Therefore, the double-dosed is an estimate that I create based on the raw number of infections among the double-dosed (which they continue to report) and an estimate of the double-dosed population (which I estimate by taking the last reported double-dosed population, subtracting off the newly triple-dosed, and adding folks that left the single-dosed 4 weeks prior). Here is an updated chart, starting with weeks 43-46 through the most recent report:
Rate of infections among all vax status groups have decreased significantly since the beginning of the year. I believe the introduction of the triple-dosed makes comparisons to prior weeks (where triple-dosed weren’t reported) difficult because of the 2-week window after someone got their 3rd dose, they are still considered only double-dosed 🤦♂️ (I suspect nearly all my readers are also readers of El Gato Malo… he has covered the problems with the 2-week windows extensively). What is clear from the above, is that for all age cohorts > 18 years old, the double & triple-dosed are being infected at higher rates than the Not Vaccinated. For the <18 year olds, the Not Vaccinated still appear to be being infected at a higher rate than the triple-dosed (but lower than the double-dosed) but that is certainly trending in a way to suggest that will change in upcoming weeks.
*** Note this data is available for y’all to consume as you like in my public dashboard. The dashboard now uses a line instead of bars for the above and you select one age group at a time, but it’s all the same data.
The problem we have is too many irrelevant "cases." The proliferation of testing produces a lot of positive results in people with no symptoms (pandemic of hypochondria) or mild symptoms. Those "cases" are irrelevant to most people. The trends indicate likely evidence of vax harm, but its buried in the noise of irrelevant tests. Hospitalizations are ambiguous since, in the US, probably elsewhere, hospitals are incentivized to admit and bill as covid those with similar symptoms. Thus the mysterious decline in flu. Even death counts are suspect since the same incentives encourage allocation to covid for deaths by other causes. It's like an uncontrolled crime scene where the evidence is unusable, and requires a confession for conviction, or a sufficiently irate jury. The clues are there, but not yet up to preponderance of evidence. Lots of reasonable doubt remains. The jury is our best hope. My pitchfork is ready.
A problem is the raw number of infections includes a lot of positive tests with no symptoms (pandemic of hypochondria) and mild symptoms -- irrelevant for normal people. Trends show likely vax harm, but the evidence is buried in the noise of all those irrelevant test "cases." Hospitalizations are ambiguous in the US since hospitals are incentivized to bill for covid "cases." Even deaths are ambiguous since those same incentives encourage diagnosis of death from other causes as covid. The corruption of the evidence is like an uncontrolled crime scene -- well need confessions to get convictions, or a sufficiently irate jury.
P.s., substack servers are slow today. I posted this, it didn't show up, I had a few minutes and was impatient so wrote it again. I kind of like them both so I'll leave them for now.