Covid19mathblog.com

11 unfortunate truths that the data has shown us:

1. Vaccination does not prevent transmission at levels seen in previous vaccination programs. High vaccination rate counties do not show a material reduction in community transmission compared to adjacent or similar counties with low vaccination rate.
2. Vaccination has shown to reduce extreme harm from covid (fatalities and hospitalization).
3. Extreme harm from covid – hospitalization and death – a majority (always exceptions) come from elderly which shows a co-correlation with amount of comorbidity typically 2 or more. Less than 50 yr old extreme harm are connected to multiple comorbidities.
4. Unvaccinated elderly and/or combination of unhealthy lifestyle has lead to a majority of hospitalization and deaths over the winter 2021.
5. However unvaccinated by itself is NOT the major contributor of the extreme harm. A healthy (less than 2 comorbidity) less than 50 yr old – the majority – do not show up being hospitalized and therefore not dying. The subset of the unvaccinated being hospitalized represents less than 2% of the entire unvaccinated. Those unvaccinated and unhealthy are typically a result of poor lifestyle choices being extended into the choice of vaccination. The inability to value health and effort to maintain health is showing up in the decision to not vaccinate for this small subset of the unvaccinated.
6. Healthy lifestyle is positive outcome for covid and many other health issues in society.
7. Vaccines do cause harm to some people – these harms (heart, zoster reactivation) could also come from covid itself but one could choose to live more secluded and/or be very well insulated from the world (e.g. double layered n95, facemask, etc..) to reduce probability of harm to close to 0 and have NO harm from either vaccination or covid infection. By vaccination you are guaranteeing a subset of the population some harm – potentially fatal harm.
8. Vaccination harm likely can be identified to a subset of the population giving them a better choice of living more protected or risking the vaccine harm. Data shows people with heart conditions and previous zoster virus infections have an increase of adverse effect.
9. Long-term bio accumulation impacts of spike protein in the body is unknown – potentially positive or negative.
10. Natural immunity is superior compared to vaccine in both variant protection and longevity. Not trying to compare to the act of getting covid – this is an after effect – no promotion in voluntarily getting covid. Not enough data to confirm.
11. School mask mandates do not work to reduce community transmission. Individually they can work. Usually when an individual makes the personal choice to wear a mask they typically have a high regards for mask and wear it effectively and likely use a superior mask e.g. N95. Perhaps mask mandates do not show effectiveness because as a collective the mask mandate may cause administrators and building managers to not do other preventive practice (ventilation, purification) thinking mask mandates are sufficient.

So what? Combining 1 through 10 unfortunate truths changes the view of the policy to vaccinate ALL at all cost. Most agree to reduce extreme harm (hospitalization and deaths) should be a primary goal. One can achieve a significant reduction of extreme harm WITHOUT forcing a vaccination to the entire public. In theory one could also achieve the goal of reducing extreme harm if successful in vaccinating all – but this will be with a cost per #7 and #9. Perhaps a smaller extreme harm subset is worth it as long as you are not part of the smaller subset.

However the path to smart vaccination policy which minimizes those harmed from vaccination is also a possibility. Without a reduction of transmission there is not a moral argument that your vaccination is guaranteed to help society. It would help society IF you were to be going to the hospital IF you caught covid – but the majority of those people can be very well defined per the data (50+ and/or multiple comorbidity). A smarter vaccine policy would have been to have each person visit a doctor to get a health examination. Health really matters #6 and many people don’t realize they are living unhealthy. The doctor can then let the patient know IF they fall into the category to have an above average chance to be hospitalized IF they caught covid. They can educated them on the value of being healthy and explain what one can do to get or maintain being healthy. In addition, they could also help identify whether person would have an adverse effect from the vaccine and potentially should live a more secluded lifestyle in order to mitigate virus and vaccination harm. Vaccinating people with 0 chance of extreme harm takes away from the global supply of vaccination plus erodes the confidence in policy makers in making smart vs. blunt policies.

The #11 truth is what we have been working on for the past month. It is unfortunate that school masking is not helping reduce community spread. Who wouldn’t want something so simple to work? Individually it makes sense – we have always noted the science of the bioaccumulation of virus on droplets. However we are talking about youths who first of have been noted to hold less viral load than adults. They are also not being extremely harmed by covid. We do know early age infection leads to robust immunity into adulthood. Behavior plays a large role and is being discounted in outcome. Lab and scientific measurements are one thing – and are overall a good indication but many times peoples behavior overwhelm the results. Logically you can see if people believe in mask mandates – they may not do other practical solutions that could reduce transmission more effectively (ventilation/purification). The behavior of a vaccinated person probably contributed to #1 – perhaps if they maintain cautiousness like they were unvaccinated perhaps transmission reduction by vaccine would be more apparent. However it is a fact most people took the vaccine in order to obtain their freedoms back – but it is those very freedoms that likely cause the transmission. The unvaccinated were likely more cautious – wearing n95 mask appropriately etc…and less social. Not all unvaccinated are your stereotypical MSM portrayal. Many unvaccinated are young healthy professionals who perhaps have calculated risk/reward including #9 and #10 and/or have been previously infected. Vaccination rate by age clearly shows society as an overall has appropriately weighed the risk/reward. The only reason 75+ is lower than the 65-74 likely due to health reasons e.g. end of life.

FULLY VACCINATION by AGE GROUP (2/12/2022) CDC https://data.cdc.gov/Vaccinations/COVID-19-Vaccination-and-Case-Trends-by-Age-Group-/gxj9-t96f

This chart below really highlights all the above. This shows the counties in both TX and CA. TX is generally a no school mask mandate state whereas CA is an all school mandate state. Y axis represent all the confirmed cases since Oct 21 divided by the population of the county – giving an effect transmission rate – the higher the number the more people in the county has gotten covid since Oct 21. The X axis is the full vaccination rate of the county for those 18 and older. The more vaccinated the county the farther it is on the right.

Ideally what we wanted to see dots sloping from the far upper left to the bottom lower right – this would indicate vaccination can help in reducing transmission. In addition we would want to see green dots being lower than orange dots to prove that school mandates reduce transmission.

Unfortunately the idealistic world doesn’t exist here. There is no statistical significance on transmission rate and vaccination rate nor school mask mandates effectively assisting in reducing community transmission.

For the school mask mandates we even looked into within a state to account for behavior and temperature and yet we still find no statistical significance in reducing community spread in counties with school mask mandates.

Interesting to see Mongolia observing large transmission over the last 30 days

Reduction in confirmed cases for sure – deaths are still holding up globally.

US total deaths are only higher than the beginning of the crisis YOY comparison. A change in administration did not assist in reducing deaths. 2022 is only slightly below pace of last year even though over 64% vaccinated compared to 2021 which averaged under 40%.

TX is leading both deaths and confirmations now for the US

TX confirmation cases have dropped rapidly – now below last year peak. Deaths still shows an upward projection but still below last years peak.

Unfortunately we are still running above normal deaths in the US