Key Points Selected By Ye Editor:
"SUMMARY:
"Infection rates are soaring in the vaccinated, with even those boosted seeing increased case rates than the unvaccinated.
The apparent lack of any ability of the vaccines to protect against infection ... suggests that the current mania in governments worldwide to vaccinate everyone to keep Covid under control is counterproductive.
The UKHSA really should comment on the purpose of vaccinating the non-vulnerable in the population.
There now appears to be an increased risk of hospitalisation for those with only two vaccine doses.
This risk appears to be rather high for those aged over 70 ...
... Urgent work should be undertaken by our authorities to fully understand what is going on with hospitalisation rates.
It may be necessary to inform the vaccinated that they need to keep getting booster doses to keep their risk of hospitalisation below that of the unvaccinated.
The increased risk of death in the double-vaccinated compared with the unvaccinated is troubling.
I hope that this is a (data) artifact ... and that the real situation is only that vaccine protection against death falls to zero
Hope is not a strategy.
The vaccine effectiveness data for those receiving two doses are particularly concerning.
... the very very negative estimates of vaccine effectiveness ... (lower than minus 300% in those aged 40-59, meaning four times as many infections than in the unvaccinated) ...
... the data show significantly negative vaccine effectiveness for those aged between 18 and 50, a group which has not received the booster in particularly high rates,
... the UKHSA would be keen to point out that its own data still shows at worst zero vaccine effectiveness, but their estimates are influenced by biases of their own ...
... I note that the cohort studies published last year suggested that two doses of vaccines had a negative effectiveness of between approximately minus-20% and minus-150% ...
... given that Omicron has further escaped the protection offered by the vaccines it is likely that the true vaccine effectiveness is now significantly (more) negative ...
... The authorities could assist by releasing more useful data or by undertaking vaccine effectiveness studies that are more robust (what’s needed are large scale matched cohort longitudinal studies).
... Of course, more robust estimates would cost a little more money to undertake – but it isn’t as though governments worldwide aren’t throwing huge amounts of cash at other aspects associated with the Covid pandemic (for example, the nearly useless Test and Trace programme).
... Hospitalisation data suggest that only having two doses of the vaccines now have negative protection against hospitalisation for all age groups aged 18 or over.
The data suggest that three doses are still offering some protection, although even this protection appears to be waning.
The trend lines in the data suggest that there has been a significant drop in vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation with the Omicron variant.
... Perhaps the very poor performance of the vaccines at protecting against hospitalisation is the reason why they didn’t want to release these data?
If anything, the data suggest that the protection against death offered by two doses of vaccine is even worse ...
... it is clear that the booster doses are now having little positive protection against infection (and probably make infection more likely), but still have some worthwhile protective value against hospitalisation and death.
However, it is likely that even the booster will repeat the spectacular drop in the effectiveness of two doses of vaccine seen in recent months.
... It is likely that further boosters will have a small positive impact and for a shorter duration of effect.
Omicron specific boosters might well improve on this ...
However, it is likely that these will merely introduce new evolutionary pressures in the virus to evolve escape to those vaccines,
and might introduce new viral behaviours that won’t be as benign as those apparently seen with Omicron."
Author Amanuensis is an ex-academic and senior Government scientist. Find him on his Substack page, Bartam’s Folly.
