There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest
Covid vaccines - thread banned users in First Post
Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
Edit: thank you for the time you took in a detailed reply, whilst I disagree with most of it, it is appreciated and far more conducive to sensible debate rather than wittering on about microchips!
Ok, so a couple of pages in explaining the changes in testing that would now skew towards the vulnerable:
. The number of confirmed cases is likely to be an underestimate of the total number who have, or have had, COVID-19. A person can have multiple tests but will only ever be counted once. The drop in the number of confirmed cases at weekends likely reflects that laboratories are doing fewer tests at the weekend. On 05 January 2022, the Scottish Government announced that asymptomatic people who return a positive lateral flow test (LFT) would no longer have to confirm their positive result with a PCR test.
The first bit deals with the fact that if you 50,000 people test positive, the total number of true cases, irrespective of vaccination status, will higher. It does nothing to explain why the rate of vaccinated cases in the confirmed cases is higher. The number of cases was higher in the vaccinated vs unvaccinated in November/December as well, all we see in January is a drop in total PCR cases. This does not explain why it was higher in the vaccinated pre 5th January.
Omicron reinfections which hits the unvaccinated more than the vaccinated (due to vaccines broad defence):
More recently, however, the monthly proportion of reinfections has risen to 6.4% in December 2021 and 9.8% in January 2022, coinciding with a rapid increase of the Omicron variant in Scotland. Evidence suggests that the Omicron variant is associated with increased risk of reinfection3.
Again this has nothing to do with confirmed case rates being higher in the vaccinated or the unvaccinated. Whether a confirmed case is an Omicron reinfection or not does not explain why the rates differ so markedly and consistently.
Moving to voluntary testing for most of the population:
On 05 January 2022, the Scottish Government announced that people who do not have symptoms would no longer be asked to take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to confirm a positive Lateral Flow Device (LFD) result. Instead, anyone with a positive LFD, who does not have symptoms, should report the result online as soon as the test is done. In order to ensure that we continue to provide the most accurate information, changes have been made to the national COVID-19 case definition to reflect this revised testing strategy.
Again see the first point - the move to voluntary testing using Lateral Flow tests does not explains why the "PCR confirmed COVID-19 age-standardised case rate per 100,000 individuals by vaccine status" is higher in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. Even if you argue it skews the numbers, it does not explain why the rates pre 5th January.
You also make no mention of the fact, and neither do the Public Health Scotland, that this was a period in which the unvaccinated were incentivised to get a PCR test rather than a Lateral Flow because of the use of recovery certs as an alternative to vaccine certs. You could only get a recovery cert from a PCR positive, which is likely to skew the numbers towards the unvaccinated being more likely to get tested, not less.
Change in policy around contact tracing that will again drop the numbers who test unless vulnerable:
Scotland’s approach to contact tracing has continued to adapt throughout the pandemic to reflect changing circumstances, variability in cases, and increasing proportion of the population fully vaccinated since the roll out of the vaccination programme. The most recent Strategic Framework issued by the Scottish Government in November 2021 sets out how Scotland will continue to adapt now that we are in the phase described as “beyond level zero”
That's just a couple of sentences patting themselves on the back. Are you say they are are going to change it in the future and it will affect the numbers, or they have constantly been adapting since November, or they did it last week. I accept that changes in policy in contact tracing will affect numbers, but there is nothing in there to suggest what, why, how or when they intend to change the policy and what impact it will have?
Specific callout on reading the data:
There is a large risk of misinterpretation of the data presented in this section due to the complexities of vaccination data. A blog post by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), formerly Public Health England (PHE), provides a comprehensive explanation of the biases and potential areas for misinterpretation of such data. They state that a simple comparison of COVID-19 case rates in those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated should not be used to assess how effective a vaccine is in preventing serious health outcomes, because there are a number of differences between the groups, other than the vaccine itself, and these biases mean that you cannot use the rates to determine how well the vaccines work.
This is obviously very relevant as it is exactly what I have been discussing. The caveats warning against "a large risk of misinterpretation of the data presented in this section" - here is the link to the comprehensive explanation - https://ukhsa.blog.gov.uk/2021/11/02/transparency-and-data-ukhsas-vaccines-report/
And the comprehensive explanation from that blog post is:
Several important factors can affect the rates of diagnosed COVID-19 cases and this may result in a lower rate in unvaccinated than in vaccinated people. For example:
- People who are fully vaccinated may be more health conscious and therefore more likely to get tested for COVID-19 and so more likely to be identified as a case (based on the data provided by the NHS Test and Trace).
- Many of those who were at the head of the queue for vaccination are those at higher risk from COVID-19 due to their age, their occupation, their family circumstances or because of underlying health issues.
- People who are fully vaccinated and people who are unvaccinated may behave differently, particularly with regard to social interactions and therefore may have differing levels of exposure to COVID-19.
- People who have never been vaccinated are more likely to have caught COVID-19 in the weeks or months before the period of the cases covered in the report. This gives them some natural immunity to the virus for a few months which may have contributed to a lower case rate in the past few weeks.
You'll notice that three out of four of these are the exactly the explanations I have said are not credible. We have discussed them and by way of explanation you suggested they mean that known behaviours of the unvaccinated in 2021 would be similiar to those in 2022, which is how we got to these lengthy posts.
The rest of your post is largely more of the same, "a warning about the change in policy around cases (almost like they expected some eejits to misinterpret the data)", for example once again:
The number of PCR confirmed COVID-19 cases and case rates have declined in the last week from 21 January 2022 to 28 January 2022. Caution should be taken when interpreting recent case trends due to the change in policy from 06 January 2022 where an asymptomatic individual who tests positive via a LFD test is not required to take a confirmatory PCR test.
The easiest way to deal with the rest this is point out that none of these policy changes explain the why "the Age-standardised case rate per 100,000 individuals by week and vaccination status, 11 December 2021 to 07 January 2022"
If all of your points to explain the higher case rates in the vaccinated are concerned with a policy change in numbers in January 2022, how do you explain the above numbers pre January 2022?
And whilst we're on the subject what is the credible explanation for the fact the English vaccinated also tested positive at a higher rate than the unvaccinated from November 2020:
Please note that the following table should be read in conjunction with pages 26-28 of this report, and the footnotes provided on page 34.
And on one of the few bits of your "analysis" that does deflect with policy changes, I know I shouldn't rise to the bait but I will.
More evidence of vaccine effectiveness:
In the last week from 22 January 2022 to 28 January 2022, in an age-standardised population, the rate of COVID-19 related acute hospital admissions in individuals that received a booster or third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine was between 3.4 to 4.0 times lower than in individuals who are unvaccinated or have only received one or two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Hospital admission for a disease is not evidence of an effective vaccine intended to prevent that disease. Quite the opposite!
0 -
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
![[Deleted User]](/applications/dashboard/design/images/defaulticon.png)
