Does This Data From Public Health Scotland Show that Vaccine Effectiveness Against Death is Just 46%?
By Will Jones
How well do the vaccines protect from death? The two most recent weekly reports from Public Health Scotland give us death data by vaccination status, and by subtracting one from the other we can work out how many Covid patients died in the week July 9th-15th. The results are shown below.
We see that 38 people died with Covid that week, 37 of whom were over 50. Twenty-eight (74%) were fully vaccinated (18 of whom were over 80 and 24 were over 70). Thirty-three (87%) had had at least one dose. Just five (13%) were unvaccinated.
To fully interpret these we need to know how many people were vaccinated in each age group. The problem with obtaining this information is that the official Scottish statistics appear to use the same method as the NHS for estimating vaccine coverage, which gives figures which exceed the likely more accurate estimates of Public Health England by around 5%.
This means the official Scottish figures show extremely high coverage in the over-60s, implausibly hitting 100% in three of the age bands. If we compare this to the latest PHE figures we can see that the corresponding figures in England, taken from the NIMS database, are more like 90-95% than 100%. In fact, the PHE figures are generally around 10 percentage points lower than the PHS figures for the under-70s. That’s a lot.
Even if the Scottish really are more keen on vaccination than the English (not unlikely, if only because of the smaller minority ethnic population), we know from the English figures that the NHS estimates appear, as mentioned, to overestimate vaccine coverage by around 5%. I’m going to use a very rough estimate then that around 93% of the over-50s in Scotland have had at least one dose (compared to around 90% in England) and around 91% are fully vaccinated (compared to around 88% in England).
Looking at just the deaths in the over 50s now (so dropping the one in the under 50s), this means that 89% of the deaths in the week 9th-15th July were in the 93% who were vaccinated with at least one dose; 76% of the deaths were in the 91% who were fully vaccinated; and 11% of the deaths were in the 7% who were unvaccinated. This does imply that the vaccines are having some protective effect, but not as much as we might have expected from other sources such as PHE which claim the vaccines are 75-99% effective against death.
Note that these figures suggest that those who had received only one dose were particularly vulnerable to death, as they made up only around 2% of the over-50s population but accounted for 14% of the deaths. Since almost all the over-50s had been offered two doses by this point, this means those who had only one may have had particular reason to avoid the second, such as a bad reaction to the first, or simply being otherwise more vulnerable.
We can use these figures to do a crude estimate of the vaccine effectiveness against death. The four deaths in the seven percent who were unvaccinated imply that if the vaccines have no effect there would have been 57 deaths in total (4/0.07), or 52 deaths in the 91% who were fully vaccinated. There were 28 deaths in the fully vaccinated, meaning the vaccines reduced the expected deaths among the over-50s by 46%. This is 46% overall protection, not protection in addition to protection from infection and hospitalisation, and is considerably below the 75-99% PHE estimate.
This is a very crude estimate, however, as 20 of the deaths were in the over-80s. Once we have more data from the recent surge we may be able to get a better estimate.
Andrew Bridgen MP Criticises Government Over “Serious Infringement on People’s Liberties” Threatened by Vaccine Passports
By Michael Curzon
Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen says vaccine passports represent a “serious infringement on people’s liberties” and that he doesn’t believe they will actually be introduced. He told LBC radio that, if the Government is serious about its plans, Parliament should be recalled so as to allow for proper scrutiny. He is quoted in the Guardian:
This is a very serious infringement on people’s liberties, it is basically unprecedented in this country, and I and a number of colleagues would oppose it.
I think it is a very blunt instrument, to threaten people with domestic Covid passports. I personally don’t think it would get through the House of Commons in any event and that’s why the Government has moved on to this ‘carrot’ inducements for young people.
Bridgen, an ally of Boris Johnson during the Brexit campaign, accused the Government of “trying to aggressively coerce these young people” into getting vaccinated but said plans would not pass through the House of Commons. He did, however, concede that the Government could introduce vaccine passports by other means. He told LBC:
If [the Government] uses the emergency powers, they probably could argue with lawyers that they could bring [vaccine passports] in without having a vote in the House of Commons. But I think that is a step far too far for Boris Johnson and this Government. …
If we can’t get out of this pandemic with our levels of vaccination and antibodies, there is very little chance for the rest of the world. They will be all watching what we do in the U.K. and I think going to domestic vaccine passports would be an authoritarian step far too far.
His comments follow criticism from within the Cabinet of plans to introduce vaccine passports, with one member saying: “It’s not who we are.”
Australia Uses Helicopters and the Army to Enforce Lockdown Rules
By Michael Curzon
The enforcement of lockdown rules in Australia has jumped to another level, with the army knocking on doors to check that people who have tested positive are self-isolating and helicopters blaring the message: “This is public health order – do not break rules – you will be found and fines issued.”
Police are also checking IDs to ensure that citizens are not outside their ‘exercise radius‘, and those not wearing face masks are being hit with $500 fines. MailOnline has more.
[On Sautrday], up to 1,300 police officers swarmed Sydney and set up a network of roadblocks in a massive show of force to avoid a repeat of last week’s violent anti-lockdown protest.
Some 250 fines, each worth $500, were issued across the city today, with one man arrested after travelling on trains outside his local Government area without a reasonable excuse.
It comes after Prime Minister Scott Morrison had launched a four-stage plan back to freedom but said 80% of adults would have to be vaccinated before the border can begin to open.
Sydney’s five million people are under a strict stay-at-home order because of a worrying surge of nearly 3,000 infections since the middle of June.
Authorities have this week outlined even tighter restrictions for some worst-affected suburbs, including mandatory testing and mask-wearing outdoors.
From Monday, some 300 army personnel will help police go door to door to ensure people who have tested positive are isolating.
New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller told a news conference: “The sheer volume of increase over the last week, the level of compliance has gone from hundreds into thousands.”
The military personnel will not be armed and will be under police command, he said. …[Australia] is faced with the spread of the much more infectious Indian variant that is proving able to overcome lockdown measures. Many highly vaccinated countries are now re-opening, but Australia is sticking to its ‘Zero Covid’ strategy while its vaccine drive lags behind the rest of the world.
Sydney’s latest surge of cases has been traced back to an unmasked, unvaccinated airport driver who got infected last month. Since then, Australia’s biggest city has reported 13 deaths.
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