The US Center for Disease Control (CDC), which probably shouldn’t have anything to do with the out of control disease Covid-19, just published a study that “finds” vaccines are more effective than natural immunity.
We’ll get to the extremely dubious conclusions in a sec. But first, you have to know that both the CDC and WHO (and pretty much everyone else in Big Pharma’s pocket) have pronouncing vaccine immunity as superior to natural immunity. Apparently several months of testing outweighs seventy million years of evolution.
According to the study, with a whopping 53 coauthors, patients who were admitted to hospital with Covid-like illness were 5 times more likely to test Covid positive if they weren’t vaccinated and had previously tested positive to Covid than similar patients who were fully vaccinated and had previously tested negative for Covid.
Yeah, I know, that’s pretty complicated. But that’s where we are — doing everything we can to show that vaccines are more effective than natural immunity after the damaging study from Israel showing the complete opposite.
And if you think just defining the cohort was complicated, you’ll have a laugh at the definition below.
The laughable conclusion
This is a screenshot of the basic data and the incredible adjusted odds ratio.
You may be wondering (like we were) how on earth the positive test results of 5.1% and 8.7% demonstrated a 5.5x increased odds ratio. Well, you wouldn’t understand. Trust me:
Odds ratios were adjusted for age, geographic region, calendar time (days since January 1, 2021), and local virus circulation (percentage of SARS-CoV-2 positive results from testing within the counties surrounding the facility on the date of the hospitalization) and balanced using inverse weights on characteristics that differed between the two groups (calculated separately for each odds ratio model) using facility characteristics, sociodemographic characteristics, and underlying medical conditions. Cardiovascular disease was also adjusted in the main model and in the model for Pfizer-BioNTech. Any likely immunosuppression was also included in the model for Moderna. Neuromuscular and respiratory conditions were also adjusted in the model for adults aged ≥65 years. Number of days since previous infection or completion of vaccination, instead of calendar time, was adjusted in the model within the stated secondary analysis.
Source: CDC.
So there you have it. Taking simple ratios very rarely delivers the results you want. And because no other media is going to bother looking past the headline, it’s now an accepted fact that vaccines are 5.5 times more effective than natural immunity. 98% of a group of 54 scientists would agree.
It does seem to be a bit of overcooked analysis. Based on the definition above, there are at least 13 variables for each patient. Statistically combining the resulting combinations and permutations, we get “bullshit in.”
It’s almost climate science.
But wait. There’s more.
If you are impressed with turning a ratio of 8.7:5.1 into 5.5, you’ll love the age group analysis.
For the over 65s, the CDC managed to turn 8.6:5.2 (1.65x) into a ratio of 19.57x. That’s more than just moving a decimal point. This is half way between magic and .
We need to put these scientists to work on the national debt. It will be gone in a week.
As laughable as this is, there’s also the actual, obvious conclusion we can draw:
Fully vaccinated patients are twice as likely to be hospitalized with Covid-like symptoms
Over the period from March 15 to May 15, an average of 24% (79 million) of Americans had been fully vaccinated. And prior to May 15, 33.7 (10%) million Americans had tested positive.
Based on this, you would expect that around 25.6 million (76% x 33.7 million) had previously tested positive and not been fully vaccinated, and a maximum of 71 million Americans had been full vaccinated and tested negative.
Therefore the ratio of hospitalizations of these two cohorts should be 3:1, all else being equal. However, according to this study, the actual ratio was 6.3:1.
The obvious conclusion (for those of us without PhDs in obfuscation) is that you are TWICE as likely to be hospitalized with Covid-like symptoms if you are vaccinated than if you aren’t and have previously had Covid.
This also agrees with previous studies and common sense. It’s also worth noting that of the vaccinated cohort, probably a third had been exposed to Covid either prior to or subsequent to testing negative, so the entire study is BS anyway.
I’m not sure that any of the 53 scientists noticed this. I’m 100% sure than none of them would have pointed it out if they had noticed. Scientists don’t like targets on their backs any more than the rest of us.
P.
