Covid19

[AdamR28]

8 hours ago, Alyksett said:

You can't just take the net deaths of vaccinated vs unvaccinated and compare the two. What if the amount of double vaxxed people is 10 times larger than the unvaxxed group?

"Several studies of vaccine effectiveness have been conducted in the UK which indicate that 2 doses of vaccine are between 65 and 95% effective at preventing symptomatic disease with COVID-19 with the Delta variant, with higher levels of protection against severe disease including hospitalisation and death." 

On the very first page....

Why not? I am very aware that the size of the groups makes a huge difference.

The proportion of the UK population who have been double vaccinated is 69% - I mentioned that in my post - yet double vaccinated people make up 80% of the deaths. If the vaccines were as effective as claimed, surely this should be much lower. I'm trying to understand why that is. Combined with Pfizers report which also seems to indicate a higher death rate after having taken the jab, something feels wrong. 

I am not an average person (IQ at 99.997th percentile) and my degree did include some study relevant to this field.

 

On the subject of the old and infirm passing away... I don't have a very popular range of thoughts in this area, but what I will say is that these opinions are formed in no small part due to what a number of my relatives are currently experiencing by trying to cling onto length of life rather than focusing on quality of life. When (if) I've had a good innings and the future looks bleak, I'll be going skydiving and packing my own 'chute thank you very much.

 

I did read first page, those numbers are completely at odds with the data provided later in the same document. I assume they come from the drug company's own reports, and are from a handful of studies. The complete numbers appear to show something vastly different.

 

On a similar note, I did my first home lateral flow test yesterday. There is no way they are as accurate (I would prefr to use the word inaccurate here, but I'll roll with it...) as claimed. You cannot trust the general population to carry out that procedure with consistency.

 

Again, I am trying to see if other people interpret this data differently to me - why that is, and how they came to that conclusion. Having a covid jab is still a personal choice (just...) and while I would love to make life a lot easier for myself and "get boosted now" (lol), the more I research the worse an idea that seems. I am also concerned for the health of others, which is why I'm unearthing these papers and linking to them.

 

Has anyone else had a look at Pfizers report I posted a few days ago? I'm keen to see if anyone else reads it the same way as me.

[AdamR28]

BTW I must say it is great that we can discuss this in such a way. Pretty much every other Covid-related forum discussion I've seen goes south pretty quickly, or gets locked / deleted by admins. Thanks dudes.

[AdamR28]

8 hours ago, MadManMike said:

And finally, "Omicron" is very easy to spread but is "very mild" according to doctors - this will end up increasing positive cases massively and lowering death rates, so the percentage drops further.

Exactly. All living organisms have the primary goal to reproduce. So once a virus knows it 'works' (has the ability to infect another organism and use it as a host to mutate and spread) its goal is to become more transmissible (maximum reproduction) but less severe. Becoming more severe is not on its agenda, because then it will end up having no more hosts available when they are all dead before having had chance to transmit.

We also didn't hear about all the other variants identified, because they didn't 'work' in the sense of what viruses aim to achieve: https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/

Omicron is an evolution and it looks to be heading down the usual virus path. Obviously big numbers of infections can be used to scare people, with the actual death rate going unreported.

 

And I agree that we are not recording this properly, which is very frustrating for me as a numbers pedant / nerd! But even with the data skewed, I do think we can read into it.

[forteh]

1 hour ago, AdamR28 said:

I am not an average person (IQ at 99.997th percentile) and my degree did include some study relevant to this field.

Alright, alright mr big head!

 

1 hour ago, AdamR28 said:

BTW I must say it is great that we can discuss this in such a way. Pretty much every other Covid-related forum discussion I've seen goes south pretty quickly, or gets locked / deleted by admins. Thanks dudes.

Refreshing isn't it?

I think that's because we're largely a mature, educated group of people who 'grew up' together on here and riding stupid bikes with no seats!  We're more of a community than a melting pot of dailymail readers the are only interested in spouting their own opinion/agenda than engaging in debate.

[MadManMike]

53 minutes ago, forteh said:

largely a mature, educated group of people

OK, I'm out. 

[forteh]

You count as the large bit mike

[MadManMike]

Ouch.

(You're not wrong, though)

[isitafox]

21 hours ago, forteh said:

Alright, alright mr big head!

 

Refreshing isn't it?

I think that's because we're largely a mature, educated group of people who 'grew up' together on here and riding stupid bikes with no seats!  We're more of a community than a melting pot of dailymail readers the are only interested in spouting their own opinion/agenda than engaging in debate.

[JT!]

On 12/16/2021 at 2:05 AM, AdamR28 said:

I'm trying to understand why that is.

Because old people are the most vaccinated age group and they're the most likely to die. Might wanna retake that IQ test.

[AdamR28]

Ok. So to look at that from another perspective... If the vaccines are as effective as they claim (95%+? Edit, Pfizer claim "95.3% effective in preventing severe disease as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration") then wouldn't that mean older people - who you rightly pointed out are the most vaccinated age group - are actually going to be less likely to die from Covid?

In the UK, official figures show ~94% of over 70s are double jabbed.

At 95% efficacy, that should mean a 70s and over death rate from Covid of just over 5%, right? (As the other ~6% unjabbed are more likely to die, in theory)

Between week 45 and 48 this year, there were a total of 2626 deaths among the over 70s within 28 days of a positive Covid test (rolls eyes). 

503 of these were unvaccinated, which is 19%. Leaving 81% of deaths as double jabbed, when we'd expect more like just over 5% if the jab worked as advertised.

I must be missing something... Happy to be shown a different way of looking at it!

[Brian Bleech]

2 hours ago, AdamR28 said:

Ok. So to look at that from another perspective... If the vaccines are as effective as they claim (95%+? Edit, Pfizer claim "95.3% effective in preventing severe disease as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration") then wouldn't that mean older people - who you rightly pointed out are the most vaccinated age group - are actually going to be less likely to die from Covid?

In the UK, official figures show ~94% of over 70s are double jabbed.

At 95% efficacy, that should mean a 70s and over death rate from Covid of just over 5%, right? (As the other ~6% unjabbed are more likely to die, in theory)

Between week 45 and 48 this year, there were a total of 2626 deaths among the over 70s within 28 days of a positive Covid test (rolls eyes). 

503 of these were unvaccinated, which is 19%. Leaving 81% of deaths as double jabbed, when we'd expect more like just over 5% if the jab worked as advertised.

I must be missing something... Happy to be shown a different way of looking at it!

Your missing the fact that if 94% of the age group specified is vaccinated it skews that second set of statistics. In other words, 6% of the population = 19% of the deaths.

Assuming the numbers cited are correct, that means unvaccinated people are dying at a higher rate. 

And that’s not accounting for that those over 70s typically have weaker immune systems because the human body gets worse at fighting off illness as it ages. Double vaccinated people can STILL catch Covid. In most people, the vaccination helps their immune system fight off the illness since it teaches the body how to react. However, if you're old and have a weaker immune system, and you end up catching a particularly rough strain of Covid, you can still suffer severe illness and possibly death simply because of the effects of age on your immune system. Vaccination improves the chance of survival, but it is not a guarantee. So, even with a large part of the elderly population being vaccinated, they still have bigger hurdles to clear if they do end up getting infected.

[AdamR28]

32 minutes ago, Brian Bleech said:

if 94% of the age group specified is vaccinated it skews that second set of statistics. In other words, 6% of the population = 19% of the deaths.

Now that makes sense. Thanks dude! (Basic 101 stats right there, its been a while. Self-facepalm)

And so by definition, 94% of that age group accounts for the remaining 81% of deaths.

So the jabs do reduce chance of death, when compared with unjabbed, in this set of data.

 

Edit: messed up all the above members by looking at the wrong table, ha. Those were overnight inpatient numbers.

Death numbers are 2404 and 368 (jabbed / unjabbed), so the 6% unjabbed population make up 13% of the deaths, and the jabbed 94% make up 87% of the deaths.

Still a 'win' for the jab. 

[Ali C]

 

You’re all just mentioning age as one variable, what about weight? Physical activity? Vitamin D levels and of course the viral load they were exposed to? All these variables effect the chances of serious illness and death so I don’t think it’s ever going to be black and white unless there’s a seriously in-depth investigation. 
 

I’m not saying the vaccines don’t do anything, I’m just saying it’s going to be hard to argue exact figures without every variable accounted for

 

I know this isn’t scientific but still interesting. A non vaccinated friend got Covid this week, felt very ill, could barely get out of bed but not hospitalized. Jane dropped off some Ivermectin at his door yesterday, today he says that he feels well enough to have gone out and acted mostly like normal (if he wasn’t quarantined). He’s in his 40s, drinks heavily and is overweight)…now he wouldn’t have gotten the full effect as he didn’t have the combo of meds needed to bring out the full benefits but that recovery seemed accelerated.
 

My two friends who are vaccinated have felt rough for over a week now and are struggling, not hospitalized and I hope it doesn’t come to that.

 

Not saying things are linked, like I say there’s lots of variables and coincidences happen but it’s interesting.

[JT!]

13 hours ago, AdamR28 said:

I must be missing something...

95% efficacy over all the age ranges. I'm sure efficacy is much higher in younger healthy people, and much lower in older or people with pre existing conditions. 95% is an average.

[JT!]

10 hours ago, Ali C said:

You’re all just mentioning age as one variable, what about weight? Physical activity? Vitamin D levels and of course the viral load they were exposed to? All these variables effect the chances of serious illness and death so I don’t think it’s ever going to be black and white unless there’s a seriously in-depth investigation. 

Yeah those are all variables too, they're just fairly insignificant in comparison to age. I remember reading the New York Times at work probably around a year ago, it had the names and ages of people who had died from covid. Hundred and hundreds of names, it took me a good while to find anyone under the age of 40.

Looking this this chart here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/

...you can see that 93.25% of covid deaths are people over 50, and only about 2% are under 40.

[Ali C]

is age the biggest variable because that's actually the case or because there's no information on the other variables? Age is an especially easy aspect to get information for, but to find their viral dose load (which I'd guess is going to be one of the leading variables), vitamin D levels or weight (a sensitive subject, we can't be seen to be fat shaming people) is going to be a whole lot harder to aquire.

I'm not denying that older people will be more at risk, this is proven but I am saying that this is just one thing is a big soup of information and quoting numbers and percentages as absolute proof could be misguided

[JT!]

Weight is an easy one, if you're dying from covid you're almost certainly admitted to hospital where they'd weigh you, or even if they were unable to weigh someone due to them being brought in in an emergency, you can easily eyeball it. I'm sure the stats are out there somewhere one weight and covid deaths.

I'm not sure if vit D level are measured in basic blood draws, if they are then they probably have those stats too, as I'm sure blood is drawn at some point if someone is in hospital due to covid.

I think viral load is probably impossible to measure, although I think this would have no effect. The larger the viral load your body takes on would increase the chances of getting covid, I can't imagine it would have any impact on dying from it, as the viral load you would take on is a tiny tiny fraction compared to how much of the virus you have in your body when you actually have covid.

 

[manuel]

18 hours ago, Ali C said:

 

I know this isn’t scientific but…

Absolutely…  I know I keep banging on about this, but taking ivermectin without a prescription, and against all medical advice is not really a good idea - it can do you more harm than good for all sorts of reasons. However if people are interested in it as an alternative treatment they should sign up for a study and make it ‘scientific’ safely and under controlled medical conditions.

Principle trial.

[Ali C]

you do keep on going on about it don't you  . I've replied to this before, I don't think my head can take another bang on the wall but here's a quicky.

Paracetamol is dangerous.

Ivermectin is dangerous.

any drug is dangerous if abused. The key is to not abuse it and let one of the safest drugs either help or do nothing at all...practically zero risk, as zero risk as you're likely to get with a drug.

[manuel]

Rhetorical (mostly) questions.

in the uk without a prescription, where are you getting ivermectin? There are people starting up buyers clubs etc to make it available - pretty open to abuse.
 

what dose are you going to take? Large doses are dangerous, as far as I can tell, more dangerous than a large dose of paracetamol.

 

The main reason I keep banging on about it is that taking unprescribed drugs against medical advice can be pretty dangerous and I don’t like it being endorsed on the forum as if it’s totally safe, or even ‘Ok if you do it right’. In the uk you need a prescription to take it. (I’m providing balance to the force here )
 

It’s a completely separate thing that it probably doesn’t do much, has just as many side effects as the vaccine and might have actually been taken less times than the ‘unproven’ or ‘experimental vaccines 8.5billion doses.

 

If I google ivermectin I get some pretty dubious results from buyers clubs to animal versions to fda warnings about it. My guess would be, statistically, taking it without being part of a trial or a prescription (if that ever happens for covid treatment) is going to make you worse off not better.

[Ali C]

Cool, I guess we’re balanced now 

[Alyksett]

Thoughts on Pfizer's Covid treatment pill? I haven't read too much about it, but it seems really promising.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-says-covid-19-pill-near-90-effective-final-analysis-2021-12-14/

[Ali C]

“Pfizer says COVID-19 pill near 90% protective against hospitalization, death”

Pfizer has said a lot of things, I’ll be more interested once places other than the people making and selling it say it’s effective 

[MadManMike]

Yeah I can't imagine they'd ever come out and say "Yeah it's about 30%, but it's better than nothing" 

[AdamR28]

Indeed. And marking ones own homework when people's lives are at stake, and there is a lot of money to be made, shouldn't be permitted IMO.

But then again, who would fund such studies on a completely impartial basis?