[Febra33]

> But the vaccinated are being infected at higher rates than the non-vaccinated according to UK govt data

I just checked your source and can't find anything to confirm your claim. Just take the latest vaccine surveillance report https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... and please do tell me where it confirms your claim that vaccinated people are infected at higher rates than the non-vaccinated. I am very intrigued.

[ColinHayhurst]

See the table on page 23. 2nd and 3rd columns. Like all stats treat with caution - see comments on p24.

[Febra33]

Thank you. I have just looked at the table and you seem to be right. The infection rate in the age range 30 to 80 is higher for vaccinated than unvaccinated. For the other groups it is higher in the unvaccinated populations (≤30, 80≥). It seems like vaccinated people in the age range 30 to 80 seems to behave more careless due to the fact that they are vaccinated and happen to catch the virus.

At the same time I have been looking at the other columns as well. The first column shows the rate of infection in people that have just tested positive. The other three columns show how much more dangerous the virus is to people who have not been vaccinated and end up in the hospital. Way more unvaccinated people end up in the hospital than vaccinated people. At the same time, way more cases of unvaccinated people that ended up in the hospital end in death than in cases of vaccinated people. The hospitalisation rates in the unvaccinated populations are from 2 to up to 4 times higher than in vaccinated populations. The death rates even more so show this discrepancy between the cases that end up in death coming from unvaccinated vs. vaccinated people.

Besides that, there are some very important pieces of information missing in this entire story. We do not know how many people have had previous infections. Read the following comment on p24: > 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

With that being said, I give you that, you are right in the fact that there are more infections in the vaccinated population than in the unvaccinated, but at the same time the former seem to have a better time after contracting the virus than the latter (proof are the death rates).

With that being said, I do not think that the right decision is to dump the vaccination certificates/passports, rather I think the right decision would be to further implement the certificate as a requirement alongside periodic testing. It has been proven in other parts of the world that the vaccination certificate is indeed an incentive for people to get the vaccine, which in turn would help the hospitalisation rates fall. Testing is still detrimental.

[agentgumshoe]

The problem is, the vaccinated are still dying and going to hospital in increasing numbers while also (if the lancet etc are correct) carrying higher viral load and spreading the virus faster. It's not clear the vaccine end goal is a net benefit if the virus is not stopped, while also risking for evolution of hotter virus variants. The shame is that the unvaccinated are treated as some lower class almost criminals, when the whole point of the vaccine drive was supposed to be about protecting the vulnerable. Most people now seem to think the unvaccinated are walking around with covid holding hands all the time, with the vaccinated still fearful of them. It's irrational.

What is the point of the passport if you can do effective pre-testing and the vaccine does not prevent covid in itself?

[Febra33]

I just think that it's a shame so many resources go to waste into treating infected unvaccinated people (they have a higher chance of ending up in the hospital) when we could redirect those resources to people that can't avoid hospitalisation with something as easy as getting a vaccine. Many scientists have been saying for months now that the vaccine might not be that effective in protecting against an infection but that it surely helps in not ending up in the hospital. I would have absolutely no problem with people refusing the vaccine if they didn't end up putting the healthcare system at risk. My home country of Romania is plagues by these cases and I have relatives that ended up having to wait for at least 3 to 4 hours for a broken bone that would've been handled in no longer than 20 minutes before. People I know, people with cancer need to postpone their operations since hospitals are working at maximum capacity. With that being said, we are living in extreme situations right now and action is needed. Vaccines might not be THAT effective in preventing infections (since people just go about their lives after getting the jab), but it surely helps with not overflowing the hospitals.

[agentgumshoe]

But the vaccinated are still ending up in hospital in increasing numbers. It's not that simple. Also, it amazingly continues to remain anecdotal instead of receiving proper media/scientific investigation, but the side effect profile is nowhere near as small as reported. Considering the affected are mostly younger, it is concerning the level of dismissal directed at this, rather instead a trusting statements from the vaccine manufacturers (who have immunity) instead. There needs to be a bit more critical thinking here.

[Yoric]

> Also, it amazingly continues to remain anecdotal instead of receiving proper media/scientific investigation, but the side effect profile is nowhere near as small as reported.

I may be misreading what you write, but are you putting together "media attention" and "scientific attention"?

In this crisis as in everything else, media have the attention span of a goldfish and considerably less attention to detail. In this crisis as in everything else, scientists, on the other hand, are working hard to obtain and study serious data, something that may very well take years.

And then there are people (not claiming you're among them) who are angry at scientists because media are not doing their work and who prefer taking the word of charlatans because - big surprise - since they don't need scientific rigor, or sometimes even real data, they can find answers to all questions.

Not a big fan of where this is all going.

[ColinHayhurst]

My small sample of people would suggest that side effects are a lot worse than we are told. I know two people who took a first dose (one AZ, one Pfizer) and have been seriously ill and for months since. What should they do if vaccine passports come in? Miss out on their lives, or risk taking a 2nd dose, then face turmoil again for a 3rd, 4th .... ?

[mordae]

There was massive underreporting of COVID cases related to job safety in Czechia. Might be similar in the UK.

I'd wager a guess that vaccinated people reported COVID to authorities more often than non-vaccinated people, because they apparently tended to comply with the recommended policy.

Unvaccinated people might have tended to treat mild COVID cases as simple colds and unless more severe symptoms developed not test or report.

[crimsonnoodle58]

From the PDF you linked. Go to Table 6.

First and second columns are shown per 100,000 people.

For ages 18-80 the cases per 100,000 people are the same or higher (up to 2x higher) in the fully vaccinated vs the unvaccinated.

[tgv]

So that would contradict this statement from the same report: "With the delta variant, vaccine effectiveness against infection has been estimated at around 65% with Vaxzevria and 80% with Comirnaty (4)."

The footnote under that table also says "Comparing case rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations should not be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection."

Edit: it would also be difficult to reconcile with the enormous disparity between <18 and subsequent rows.

[djantje]

If 100% of the people are vaccinated, 100% of the infections will be from vaccinated people.

[crimsonnoodle58]

It's per 100,000 people, based on their vaccination status. It's already normalised.

[djantje]

You are correct, I must say I didn't expect this to be the case (ofcourse I also read the footnote, but still)

[plantain]

Isn't that entirely expected with most of the population vaccinated? I imagine most car crash deaths are from those wearing seatbelts too.

[agentgumshoe]

No, the rate per 100k should be much lower if vaccination is working properly. Yes the case numbers would be expected to be higher (a lot of people argue 'base rate fallacy'to support this), but that fails to address that the vaccine should reduce the rate per population, even if raw numbers are expected to be higher due to coverage. The data is not supporting that.

[crimsonnoodle58]

The UK is only around 67.6% fully vaccinated. Regardless, these numbers are per 100,000 people based on their vaccination status. They are normalised.

[wsc981]

In Germany a MP has compared statistics of various states and noticed more excess deaths in states that have higher vaccination rates. She has asked to German Ministry of Health to look into the cause.

https://youtu.be/iKVOqYUAHTo