AKA the Stay Vigilant Post
September 11, 2021
Intro: on risk assessments
As I write this, it has been exactly 20 years and some hours since the 9/11 attacks - among other things - totally blew my mind. And it's just weeks after the resultant 20-year occupation of Afghanistan ended on such a nauseating note of total waste. I have both too much and too little to say about that and what's transpired between. And it so happens the COVID-19 pandemic has again seized my attention these days. As pressure mounts amid a general 4th wave of vaccine-defying "breakthrough" infections, and many still balk at the unknown dangers of the vaccines available, it's worth considering what the VIRUS has done despite the limits we've tried to impose on it.
The USA leads the world for confirmed cases, at least because India is undercounting so badly. The death toll here is at least 20-30% higher than the official 670,000. (Nearly all of these had some pre-existing condition assisting, known or unknown, but that's little comfort to the millions with such conditions.) That's equal to at least 268 9/11s so far. Officially, a somewhat constrained COVID-19 killed more people than 9/11 did every day on average for the first 6 weeks of this year. Oh, that's the worst it got? Forty-two 9/11s in a row? Why all the worry then, huh?
There have been just over 4.6 million confirmed deaths worldwide to date, and a lot of research - including some of my own - suggests the true death toll is much higher. Consider India alone -where this delta variant got its start - is estimated to have had 4 million deaths as of July 20. Even now they count less than half a million (~443,000). On a recent quick review, I estimate over 10 million global deaths for sure, probably over 12 million, and maybe even past 13 million. The Economist has been following quite well, and I see just now they estimate more than 15 million excess deaths during the pandemic (mainly from the disease but also some "lockdown deaths").
That's as-is, WITH current measures. Otherwise it could have been twice this bad, or maybe even ten times this bad. So it could have easily been 30 million, or maybe even 150 million dead without current measures. Why all the worry then, huh? Why all those measures?
And so there was the struggle to devise a vaccine that took a while, then its implementation and general good results at first. But then the delta variant taking over the scene this year, and we hear more and more about vaccinated and even fully-vaccinated people getting infected anyway. They get hospitalized and die more than expected, more than their share, or almost exclusively - at least per circulating claims. It seems like the touted protection is failing or even backfiring.
By different measures, in different places and at different times, this is definitely happening to a degree that can't be ignored. Sometimes the unvaccinated do better than partly vaccinated, or partly vaccinated do better than fully, etc. But some people are hearing too much about this, including dangerous misinformation, and aren't seeing enough consideration of what the evidence truly shows or how it applies worldwide.
I looked at four claims to this effect, regarding highly-vaccinated Israel and the United Kingdom, three of which proved false (or apparently so), and one basically true. That true one and some other curious patterns emerge as worthy of consideration. I'm still no real expert, but I'll suggest a core issue here is a complex balance of the limited protection afforded by vaccines, and mismatched levels of confidence and thus inadequate caution. The vaccinated will better avoid infection and bad outcomes, all else being equal. But the protection is incomplete enough that it allows that psychology issue to make it so all things aren't equal; some on the vaccinated side get reckless thinking they're immune, as more on the other side stay careful knowing they aren't, and their results get on par or even flipped.
I think in the UK and especially in Israel, we're seeing the inadequately vaccinated minority of people infecting and killing each other at needless levels by spreading it anyway. And sometimes even fully vaccinated is still inadequate. That's an issue that may get even worse with strains and variants yet to emerge.
The good news is we can see places where these patterns have already improved markedly, as with increased public awareness among the partly vaccinated - especially those well past their only dose - to stop ACTING like they're safe. This would mean that public education can help close that gap, but as it stands and is likely to stand, vaccines are not the panacea some predicted. They do seem to offer solid protection - especially when current full/boosted. But their protection was never absolute and has gotten lower, bringing a danger of carelessness. Better vaccines ones will emerge, probably a bit too late to be much better. Then and now, more people need to realize nothing works close to 100% in itself - the safe bet is to resume or maintain layering of measures. Boosting your vaccination won't be a guarantee - it can be skipped by some - especially those with known risks - avoidance alone keeps sparing many, but that can be seen increasingly to fail even worse than vaccines have been. The clear answer is to use neither alone but both together - pick your package of measures to avoid infecting yourself and others - specially yourself. Everyone should still, within reason, be avoiding crowds, watching what they touch between hand washing/sanitizing, distancing around strangers, masking up in case they're already infected, etc.
And also this cannot be done in acute, short-term lockdown mode, except as needed at the worst points. We'll need to live life, run this economy, and so on WHILE doing these other things as possible. It will be tricky balancing, and people will die no matter what. But we can do it smarter than we are. WE can probably still crush this thing globally and totally move on, once we get smart enough. In the meantime, we've already done a lot, willingly or not, and have saved many millions of lives. A whole lot more remain at stake, so let's try to save as many of them as possible too.
First, yet more confusion stands in the way of some people getting on board with the life-saving.
Four Analyzed Claims: True or False?
60% hospitalized in UK are double-vaxxed: Apparently false
Claims in July: 60% of UK’s newly hospitalized Covid patients are "double vaccinated" at a time when less than 60% of all people there were fully vaccinated. This claim cited UK Health Secretary Sir Patrick Vallance who actually said that. But he misspoke, and corrected himself later in the day on Twitter: "Correcting a statistic I gave at the press conference today, 19 July. ... rather 60% of hospitalisations from COVID are currently from unvaccinated people." (Sky News with video) Oops.60% of deaths in UK 2x vaxxed: True
In confusion I challenged an argument about 60% something covid UK something, as lodged by "Tribal Block" on Twitter, more recently than I thought. They had pointed out " Just look at the official http://GOV.UK covid research data for yourself folks. Does the data and trend support the jab narrative?" Shows 6 out of 10 or 60% of deaths from COVID-19 were among the double-vaccinated, when they're only by then 69% of the populace. So yes, it "supports the jab narrative" of protection but just barely, not enthusiastically.Upon investigation, this is true, at that time and in general/on average, at least as of July and August. The fully vaccinated have that lower rate of hospital appearance noted above, but it seems this is offset with deadlier stays when they do get hospitalized. As such, percentages of partly, fully, and unvaccinated deaths (within 28 days) are depressingly similar to rates in the populace. It looks kind of like there's no effect. But how can there not be? Rather, I suggest, this shows a balance of different effects that comes out roughly neutral so far (in England/UK, by this metric).
One odd pattern is for 1x vax often seeming safer than 2x, which contrasts with the above - they get hospitalized more, but then die less. Something about their demographics might help explain this. Also consider that 2x vax is used disproportionately by the most vulnerable, many of them in care homes, etc. If there were outbreak and enough carelessness, quite a few could still die even if the vaccine is working as we hear. Again, we hear it does fairly little to prevent infection with delta but plenty to protect from serious harm - at least for most people. Some of the worst off may see no real advantage at all, disastrously leaned against a SENSE of protection that leads them or those around them to careless behavior.
Let's have a look at PHE's Technical briefings, like number 19 cited above, as collected here Investigation of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: technical briefings - GOV.UK . We're looking at the same table 5, but now looking at delta variant deaths instead of hospitalizations. starting with number 16, covering to 14 June 14, like all of them starting from February. Then we'll check in over 6 more briefings 17-22 - 2 weeks apart, covering 12 weeks. most of the action is happening recently, when vax rates have been similarly high to now. 1,798 deaths by Aug. 29 - from 73 by June 14 = 1,725 in 12 weeks.
At the outset recall last year even before delta but also before vaccines, the UK was suffering up to 1,000 covid deaths PER DAY at the peak (and even more considering the evident undercounting/misclassification). This year still it's gotten no worse than about 600 in 2 weeks. That's a massive difference.
https://www.bing.com/covid/local/unitedkingdom?vert=graph
Over these same 12 weeks, the rate of fully vaccinated rose from 48.82% to 68.63% while overall vaccinated only grew 67.4% to 77.06% - slowing in early July from a faster rate over the summer. Partially vaccinated, defined as no 2nd jab - has shrunken from 18.58% to 8.43% as more people stepped up in the program and less new people started on it. Again, partially vaccinated (pv) combines "21 days post dose 1" and "≥21 days post dose 1" (the bigger number). Fully vaccinated (fv) is headed "Received 2 doses"
Briefing 16 to 14 June
Deaths 73 (cumulative from Feb. 1, but only listing deaths within 28 days of positive test)
Unlinked (or Vaccination status unknown): 2
fv 26 = 35.62% (including earlier times when less than 1% were fully vaxxed)
pv 11 (10 1) = 15.07% (given as at least partly vaxxed - subtracting fully vaxxed)
nv 34 = 46.58% (including times when more than 80% were unvaxxed)
And over the next 6 2-week spans, a bunch of numbers one can look at or scroll past:
Deaths: 117 - 73 = 44 new in last 14 days
unlinked: 3
fv 50 - 26 = 24 new, 54.54% vs. 48.82% in populace
pv 20 (1 19) - 11 = 9 new, 20.45% vs. 18.58% in populace
nv 44 - 34 = 10 new, 22.73% vs. 32.6% in populace
(14 June vax rates: 48.82% fv, 18.58% pv (67.4% pv+), 32.6% nv)
deaths 257 - 117 = 140 new
Unlinked: 2
fv: 118 - 50 = 68 new 48.57% vs. 52.26% in pop.
pv: 45 (1 44) - 20 = 25 new 17.86% vs. 19.04% in pop.
nv: 92 - 44 = 48 new, 34.3% vs. 28.7% in pop.
(22 June vax rates: 52.26% fv, 19.04% pv (71.3% pv+), 28.7% nv)
Deaths: 460 - 257 = 203 new
unlinked: 6 - 2 = 4 new, 1.97%
fv: 224 - 118 = 106 new, 52.22% vs. 54.58% in populace
pv: 65 (5 60) - 45 = 20 new, 9.85% vs. 18.42% in populace
nv: 165 - 92 = 73 new, 35.96% vs. 27% in populace
(vax rates 5 July: 54.58% fv 18.42% pv, 27% nv)
Deaths: 742 - 460 = 282 new
8 unlinked - 6 = 2 new = 0.71%
fv: 402 - 224 = 178 new, 63.12% vs. 58.68% in pop.
pv: 79 (10 69) -65=14 new = 4.96% vs. 15.76% in pop.
nv: 253 - 165 = 88 new, 31.2% vs. 24.74% in pop.
Deaths 1,189 - 742 = 447 new
16 unlinked - 8 - 8 new, 1.79%
fv: 679 - 402 = 277 new. 61.97% vs. 62.35% in pop.
pv: 104 (14 90) - 79 = 25 new, 5.59% vs. 12.92% in pop.
nv: 390-253=137 new, 30.65% vs. 24.74% in pop.
1,798 - 1189 = 609 new
- 29 unlinked - 16 = 13 new, 2.13%
fv: 1,091 - 679 = 412 new = 67.65% vs. 65.74%
pv: 142 - 104 = 38 new = 6.24% vs. 10.35%
nv: 536 - 390 = 146 new =23.97% vs. 23.95%
(vax rate 16/8 65.74% fv, 10.31% JUST pv (76.05% pv+), 23.95% nv)
Graphic: UK, COVID-19 delta variant deaths within 28 days, by vaccination status: depressing similarity to rates in populace
Keeping it simple with a lumped PV category skipped over another important point to note: the big difference between those ≥21 days from dose 1 vs. those <21 days out. The whole small category did fairly well by this measure, but when we note it breaks down like 5 vs. 60 and 14 vs. 90, it should be noted that recently single-vaccinated people somehow did amazingly better than fully vaccinated people at surviving breakthrough infections. Someone should try to figure out just what that means. But conversely, the weakly and not-recently vaccinated did quite a bit worse than this shows. If I were to come back and add to this post, it would be to show that difference. But for now...
85-95% hospitalized in Israel are fully vaxxed: apparently false.
There's a claim to this effect, noted via RanIsraeli on Twitter: Dr. Kobi Haviv medical director of Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem, said in a Channel 13 TV News, August 5 "90% ... 85-90% of the hospitalizations are in fully vaccinated people. ... The effectiveness of the vaccine is waning/fading out," He apparently puts it at 95% at another point per video titles, clarifies this is at his clinic but also seen broadly in Israel. "outbreaks in hospitals ... it is not just here and there."
I didn't yet find a direct source on this from Channel 13, nor any kind of explanation or retraction. Definitions? if fully vaccinated means "vaccinated with thrust (booster)" there's a real problem (alleged). Only 74% of the population at the time was fully vaxxed, so even 85% of hospitalizations would be disproportionate - and the Ministry of Health is lodging masses of fraudulent data.
Checking the Israeli health ministry's website, on August 5 there were 26 new critically ill patients, ZERO of them fully vaccinated - not 85-95%. It was about the same on all preceding days, but climbing to some 3 or 4 per day afterwards, and later to 7 or 8 (out of about 48 total on Aug. 27, for example = 16.67%).
https://datadashboard.health.gov.il/COVID-19/general?utm_source=go.gov.il
I see no 85-95% for any one group, but a definite rise with unvaccinated and partly vaccinated, and only a mild rise later on, with the fully vaccinated majority - the claim seems blatantly false, but perhaps well-intentioned: it seems one thing the vaccinated need - the partly more so than the fully vaccinated - is to get better at avoiding infection. Scare tactics like thus might help.
IF I'm comparing the right things, 1x vaxxed seems extra unsafe here - contrary to the England mortality trends seen above. A larger number of cases (about 15-30/day) came from among "vaccinated no thrust" - about 5.6% of the populace only partly vaccinated. In contrast only about 10-15/day came from the unvaccinated - a much bigger group nearly 3.8x times the size, with no vaccine assisting. The partly vaxxed are probably not more vulnerable to infection in itself (is that even possible?), so this likely this shows over-confidence in protection that has lapsed, or is just no match for the new, virulent strains. Note how the pattern improves sharply by mid-August (falling to 10-15/day), as the unvaxxed maintain the same care as always but can only avoid it so well and keep sending 20-30/day. That looks like a learning curve, with some vaccine assistance regained. Dr. Haviv's apparent disinformation may have been of some help there.
Unfortunately, past Israel's borders, this disinformation becomes toxic. It's become more fuel to a smoldering global wildfire of ignorance - see latest Twitter citations by assorted virus apologists as proving all vaccinations everywhere are, like, pointless or even deadly. "It's a pandemic of the vaccinated." Rather, as the UK data shows clearly, the vaccines can be rendered useless on balance, or even harmful by - as I propose - misplaced over-confidence. But especially with continued caution, the data keeps suggesting the most vaccinated can actually avoid the pandemic of the unvaxxed raging around them.
Fully vaxxed infected above average in Israel - apparently false
A data table posted around shows COVID-19 infections in Israel between 4 July and month's end, broken down by age. Many brackets show infection rates past their rates in the populace, and others are very close, so that on average of everyone aged 20-90, 86% of cases were among the fully vaccinated, to 84.4% of the populace fully vaxxed. By this, the vaccine was or is causing more cases than it's preventing!Infections among the vaccinated majority are expected now, but we also hear they're still protected from infection and thus re-spread - just not as totally as was hoped. It has been up to 95%+ depending on the exact vaccine vs. dominant strain at the time. On July 23 CNBC reported Israel says Pfizer Covid vaccine is just 39% effective as delta spreads, but still prevents severe illness - depressingly low but still far better than zero percent protection. Still, the percentage vaccinated who get infected, ill or dead should at least be smaller than their share of the populace.
The degree of current protection comes into focus, as alleged above the jabbed are getting infected at rates mostly ABOVE their (incorrect) portion in the populace, and are thus killing more of the unvaccinated minority. But the data I see at the source cited, in general, suggests some among the unvaccinated and the partly vaccinated are disproportionately infecting and killing each other.
https://datadashboard.health.gov.il/COVID-19/general?utm_source=go.gov.il
daily confirmed infections, absolute number, entire population (all ages - only above or below 60 is available anyway), by vaccination status: no 86% anything: about 50% pv, 50% nv, 0% fv in July
All "cities/settlements" with over 900 patients: Maybe I missed a couple, but noting 20 locations of that size, with 45,128 patients total between them. Every larger number shows:
* NONE with fully vaccinated appearing above average (which, again, is 74.94%): they range from no worse than 68.8% to as low as 21% of patients (28% to 91% of their proportion in the populace - NOT 100%+)
* NONE with partly vaccinated appearing above average - a refreshing change from some of the data (<81.8%): they range from 72.3% to as low as 32.2% of known, active cases in these 20 areas.
* ALL have above average non-vaccinated (>18.2%), sometimes drastically: no lower than 27.7% of patients and up to 67.8% of them are unvaccinated. That's 1.5x up to 3.7x their share of the population - NOT getting strangely spared.
Biggest number in one "settlement" by far is 5,154 patients in Jerusalem. Of these 45% are fv (0.6x their share of the populace), 52.3% pv (0.64x their share), and 47.7% are from among the 18.2% (national average) forgoing the vaccine for whatever reason (2.6x their share of the populace).
Next biggest: tel aviv-jaffa: 3,829 patients - 64.5% fv (86% nat.av.) - 67.7% pv (83% av) - 32.3% nv (177% av)
Full vaccination seeming hardly better than partial - in both of these two largest pools - is an interesting detail and one that becomes quite relevant by scale. The simple reading is there's not much difference from infection but (per the data above on "seriously ill") the booster / full vaccination protects much better from bad effects. Consider the worse case for boosters, Tel Aviv-Jaffa - 2,592 vaccinated patients - 2470 of these fully covered, just 122 in for missing the "thrust" - all getting sick just below national average. But still, the un-boosted will suffer worse effects and die at a higher rate. And even here, non-vaccinated people are getting infected at about twice that rate, and then faring even worse under it.
Best (reported) vax spare rate in a sizeable population: "elite intelligence" (prisoners?): Out of 1,233 patients, 21% were fully vaccinated (28% their national average), 32.2% were (at least) partially vaccinated (39% their national average), and 67.8% were unvaccinated (373% the national average)
Below is the list of 20 city/settlement/entries considered, as given by raw auto-translation. Especially for those who know Israel better, the area breakdowns might shed light on how Palestinians and Palestinian areas are faring. Other metrics on that dashboard might shed light on hospitalization and mortality rates, etc. There are these 2 less-vaccinated population minorities infecting each other and dying at higher rates ... just who are those people? That seems like a good question I'll just ask for now.
city patients fv pv nv
rishon lezion 2340p 68.8% 72.3% 27.7%
haifa 2716p 67.8% 71.6% 28.4%
sheva 2387 66.7% 71.3% 28.7%
kiryat ata 992p 66.5% 71% 29%
petah tivka 2898p 66.1% 70.5% 29.5%
meth 1543p 66.1% 70.2% 29.8%
ramat gan 1152p 66.4% 69.3% 30.7%
holon 2189p 65.3% 69.1% 30.9%
tel aviv-jaffa 3829p 64.5% 67.7% 32.3%
hadera 1285p 62.6% 66.7% 33.3%
ashkelon 1770p 61.5% 66% 34%
blocks 1725 61.8% 65.6% 34.4%
netanya 2941 61.1% 65.4% 34.6%
ashdod 3646 58.7% 65% 34%
ramla 987p 55.4% 62.1% 38%
singer 960p 54.6% 60.5% 39.5%
jerusalem 5154p 45% 52.3% 47.7%
bnei brak 3482p 29.3% 38.3% 61.7%
beir shemesh 1899p 29.7% 35.3% 64.7%
elite intelligence 1233p 21% 32.2% 67.8%
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