Crooked statistics about vaccination status
False statistics and misinformation are being used to push the baseless narrative that most COVID-19 hospital patients are unvaccinated.
On Friday, September 17, the CDC published a study that refutes the common claim that Covid-19 is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Coauthored by more than 50 MD’s and Ph.D.’s, the study contains data on the vaccine status of adults hospitalized with Covid-19 at 21 U.S. hospitals across 18 states during March to August of 2021.
Contrary to assertions from the Associated Press and Anthony Fauci that fully vaccinated people comprise only 1% of those being hospitalized or killed by C-19, the study found that 13% of patients hospitalized with C-19 had been fully vaccinated. Moreover, that 13% figure is just the tip of iceberg because the authors excluded from their study a large group of hospitalized C-19 patients, the bulk of whom were likely vaccinated.
About half of the omitted group and 27% of the C-19 patients in these hospitals were people with “immunocompromising conditions,” such as cancer, HIV, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, scleroderma, and Crohn’s disease. In the words of an FDA official and 18 other coauthors published in a medical journal, “immunocompromised individuals” were “prioritized for early immunization” and are “plausibly more likely to be offered and seek vaccination” because they are highly vulnerable to C-19.
On September 21, Just Facts asked Dr. Wesley Self, the lead author of the study, to release the data on the vaccination status of the C-19 patients with immunocompromising conditions. He has not replied.
The authors of the CDC study also excluded another 25% of all people hospitalized with C-19 because they were partially vaccinated, “received a Covid-19 vaccine other than Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, or Janssen [J&J],” or “received doses of two different Covid-19 vaccine products.”
Accounting for all of the C-19 patients in these hospitals, including those the authors excluded, a majority may have been fully or partially vaccinated against Covid:
Filling the gap left by vagueness of the CDC’s study, a precise measure of the vaccine status of people who died from the Covid-19 Delta variant is available from the United Kingdom, where the government keeps detailed healthcare records on nearly all citizens. Relevantly, the U.S. and UK have very similar C-19 death rates and had roughly equivalent vaccination rates over the period of the CDC study.
In the UK from February through August 2021, 62% of all Covid-19 Delta variant deaths were among the fully vaccinated. This amounts to a conclusive majority in a dataset with virtually every death included.
Seeing Through False Statistics
The story behind the talking point that Covid-19 is “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” is a textbook case of how false statistics are born and proliferate. Hence, it provides valuable insights about the dangers of blind trust and how to recognize deceitful rhetoric.
Late in June 2021, the Associated Press published an article titled, “Nearly All COVID Deaths in US Are Now Among Unvaccinated.” Written by Carla K. Johnson and Mike Stobbe, it was republished or cited by more than 100 media outlets and so-called fact checkers like PBS, Snopes, Bloomberg, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, FactCheck.org, Yahoo News, and WebMD.
The article claims the AP conducted an “analysis” that found only 1.1% of all C-19 hospitalizations and 0.8% of C-19 deaths in May were due to “breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people.” While using those decimal points that convey a false sense of precision, the authors slipped in this craftily worded admission: the AP calculated these rates based on “figures provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” but the CDC has not published such rates due to “limitations in the data.”
Those limitations, in the words of the AP, include the reality that “some” states are “more aggressive than others in looking for such cases.” The word “looking” is a coy way of saying that the states don’t have a comprehensive system to count these deaths, a fact that throws the entire analysis into doubt.
With a subtle nod to that reality, the AP confesses that the “data probably understates” the number of vaccinated people who died from Covid-19. Compare that softly worded disclosure to the CDC’s explicit warning that its data on breakthrough infections “relies on passive and voluntary reporting, and data might not be complete or representative.” On August 25, the CDC strengthened that language to make clear that the “data are not complete or representative.”
Put simply, the AP’s statistics are meaningless because they are based on materially incomplete data. That was evident from the outset from a close look at the AP’s methodology, and it is now undeniable given the CDC study and UK data detailed above. Again, these indicate that fully vaccinated people comprise about 50% of all Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths, not 1% as reported by the AP.
Nevertheless, Fauci appeared on the July 4th edition of NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd and parroted the AP’s bogus stat without mentioning any of its caveats. “If you look at the number of deaths,” declared Fauci, “about 99.2% of them are unvaccinated. About 0.8% are vaccinated. No vaccine is perfect. But when you talk about the avoidability of hospitalization and death, Chuck, it’s really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventable.”
As Fauci uttered this misinformation, Todd, the political director of NBC News, never expressed a hint of skepticism. Acting like a mouthpiece instead of a journalist, Todd ended the segment by praising Fauci for “focusing” on his job and this “massive success story when it comes to vaccines and what this government-led effort did.”
Instead of correcting the AP and Fauci for misrepresenting CDC data, the director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, amplified it. During a July 16th White House press conference with Fauci by her side, Walensky stated that “over 97 percent of people who are entering the hospital right now are unvaccinated” and that Covid-19 “is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
In turn, media outlets acted as megaphones for Fauci and Walensky without a word of critical analysis. This involved reports from the likes of ABC News, NPR, The Hill, CNN, Politico, Rolling Stone, USA Today, The Guardian, and the Washington Post, as well as three separate articles from the New York Times.
The Times later conducted its own analysis using the same ruse as the AP, reporting that fully vaccinated people were only 0.1% to 5% of Covid-19 hospitalizations across 40 states since vaccinations began. Buried near the end of the story, the Times revealed that it calculated these rates by lumping C-19 patients “with unknown vaccination status” into the “data for individuals who were not fully vaccinated.”
One week later, the Times began walking back those claims. On August 17, it alleged that reports from seven states with “the most detailed data” indicate that “breakthrough infections accounted for 12 percent to 24 percent of Covid-related hospitalizations.”
Despite those larger figures—which are still far removed from reality—the Times did not correct any of its earlier articles touting figures of 1% to 3% accompanied by quotes like this:
“The takeaway message remains, if you’re vaccinated, you are protected,” said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York. “You are not going to end up with severe disease, hospitalization or death.”
Implications
The most glaring lesson from this affair is that people entrusted to protect and inform the public are untrustworthy. Government officials with prestigious credentials and prominent media outlets repeatedly misreported the facts of this simple matter with life-or-death consequences. Thus, it is crucial to learn and apply proven methods to sort out the claims that surround important issues.
Secondly, Covid-19 still poses a considerable risk to some fully vaccinated people because a vaccine is only as good as each person’s immune system. Vaccines don’t directly attack virulent microbes in the same manner as antibiotics or anti-viral medicines. Instead, vaccines trigger people’s immune systems to react more quickly than usual and kill pathogens before they can do harm. If a person’s immune system is compromised by factors like poor general health, old age, obesity, immunosuppressing drugs, or lack of sleep, a vaccine will be less effective or ineffective.
Also, the currently available C-19 vaccines create an immune response to only one part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (the “Spike” protein). This produces narrower immunity than exposure to the actual virus. In accord with this fact, a study in Israel that has not yet undergone peer review has found that the Pfizer vaccine is much less effective in protecting against the Delta variant than naturally acquired immunity.
Third, none of the above means that C-19 vaccines are ineffective. Randomized controlled trials, which are the gold standard for determining clinical efficacy, have found that the C-19 vaccines significantly reduce the odds of having a bout of severe Covid-19. The Pfizer vaccine, for example, reduced the odds of severe C-19 by 71% to 100% for people who were not immunocompromised over a period of six months. Whether or not this protection lasts and if the benefits exceed the harms will be the subjects of upcoming article
https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/covid-19-is-not-a-pandemic-of-the-unvaccinated
************************************************Doctors with covid-19 put early at-home treatment to the test
Two physicians who are leading the charge on early at-home COVID-19 treatment to reduce hospitalization and death, have themselves become infected with the virus and following the regimen they, themselves preach
Two physicians who are leading the charge on early at-home COVID-19 treatment to reduce hospitalization and death, have themselves become infected with the virus and following the regimen they, themselves preach.
The surprise announcement of their illnesses came during an October 27 webcast by Covexit.com. Peter McCullough, M.D., a public health expert, researcher and cardiologist at the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute in Dallas, Texas, was scheduled to discuss the COVID treatment algorithm he helped design and was published August 7 in the American Journal of Medicine. During the presentation, McCullough revealed he was currently sick with the virus and is following his own protocol.
“I fully expect to have a prompt recovery, to return to work and avoid the risk of hospitalization and death,” said McCullough.
Moderator Jean-Pierre Kiekens then brought in another champion of early at-home treatment to the discussion, Brian Tyson, M.D., a family physician in California. Tyson said, he too, tested positive with the virus, and felt remarkably better after two days of the at-home regimen.
Physicians Avoiding the Hospital
McCullough said he tested positive the day before his presentation but showed symptoms several days earlier. The day before his test result came back, McCullough said he began treatment for his particular cohort in the algorithm, a patient over age 50 and with two or more pre-existing conditions (asthma, heart disease).
McCullough’s home regimen consists of the anti-viral drug, Ivermectin (IVM), the antibiotic, Azithromycin, zinc, vitamin D, an increase in his daily dose of aspirin for mild heart disease, and plenty of fresh air to avoid re-inoculation. If his symptoms don’t improve in 5 days, McCullough says he will start taking prednisone.
Tyson said he also used IVM in his treatment and noticed a huge improvement in symptoms on day two. “It is still lingering a little, bit. It’s more like a head cold, but the IVM seemed to really knock it out,” said Tyson.
The IVM and the antibiotic are “off label” use, meaning, they have been approved for other illnesses, not for COVID-19. Both physicians looked well, but tired, and McCullough sneezed a few times and sounded congested. McCullough said he ran six miles, four days earlier.
The Case for Early Treatment
There are four pillars to controlling a pandemic, stated McCullough, but the media and public health authorities focus on only three of them, with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s presentation on the Yale Global Health Network October 26, being a case in point. “The entire message was contagion control, shelter in place, and wait for a vaccine. There was no mention of early home treatment.” Incidentally, Fauci’s presentation on Zoom was standing room only, McCullough’s presentation had 57 participants.
People are going to get sick with COVID-19 if they haven’t already, said McCullough. “Early home treatment can be the only method for reducing hospitalizations and death once an individual gets sick. The hospital should only be a safety net for survival. It should not be the first place of treatment” said McCullough. McCullough says the U.S. should follow what India and Brazil have done and make available at-home COVID-19 treatment kits.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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