Saturday, November 13, 2021

How much does vaccine efficacy drop over 6 months? The VA and CDC duke it out: whose data are better? Whose study was peer-reviewed? Who got published in Science magazine?

CDC is always finding ways to massage its data or use estimates instead of real numbers to "prove" the veracity of whatever narrative it is currently pushing. In this case it selected 5 VA Medical Centers and came up with numbers that are too good to be true.  But I think CDC did not reckon with the VA system fighting back with the truth.

Here is the conclusion of CDC's study of (selected) VA data regarding COVID vaccine efficacy over six months:  

During February 1–August 6, 2021, vaccine effectiveness among U.S. veterans hospitalized at five Veterans Affairs Medical Centers was 87%. mRNA COVID-19 vaccines remain highly effective, including during periods of widespread circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant. Vaccine effectiveness in preventing COVID-19–related hospitalization was 80% among adults aged ≥65 years compared with 95% among adults aged 18–64 years.

VA scientists pushed ahead and studied the entire VA database of 780,000 vaccinated beneficiaries from February to October, and published it in the US' premier science journal, Science

Their conclusions, drawn from 6 months of data collected only a tiny bit later than what CDC used, but employing a complete dataset that had not been cherrypicked, were shockingly different than what CDC's braintrust had reported.

Here is how the VA authors characterized CDC's overall COVID data collection:

The debate over boosters in the U.S. (24) has laid bare the limitations of its public health infrastructure: national data on vaccine breakthrough are inadequate. The CDC transitioned in May 2021 from monitoring all breakthrough infections to focus on identifying and investigating only hospitalized or fatal cases due to any cause, including causes not related to COVID-19 (25). Some data on vaccinations, infections, and deaths are collected through a patchwork of local health departments (10), but these data are frequently out of date and difficult to aggregate at the national level. Here, we address this gap and examine SARS-CoV-2 infection and deaths by vaccination status in 780,225 Veterans during the period February 1, 2021 to October 1, 2021, encompassing the emergence and dominance of the Delta variant in the U.S.

And their results?

"26,114 positive PCR tests occurred in 498,148 fully vaccinated Veterans--over 5% of vaccinated veterans got COVID despite their vaccinations." 

In March, VE-I (vaccine efficacy against infection) was 86.4%  for Janssen; 89.2%  for Moderna; and 86.9%  for Pfizer-BioNTech.

But six months later... 

By September, VE-I had declined to 13.1% for Janssen; 58.0%  for Moderna; and 43.3%  for Pfizer-BioNTech.

This is consistent with Israel's report in August that Pfizer vaccine efficacy had dropped to 39%.  Israel vaccinated its population more speedily than the US and all other countries. 

The VA found that protection against death was better than protection against infection, but also waned over time. And the VA authors then cited ten other studies whose data were consistent with what the VA found:

Other U.S. studies (2931), many conducted in large healthcare systems, similarly show declining VE-I as the Delta variant rose to dominance, with notable declines in older adults. For example, two studies conducted in Kaiser Permanente Southern California show VE-I decreased from 95% at 14-60 days to 79% at 151-180 days after vaccination for ages 18-64 years (29), and from 80% at 1 month to 43% at 5 months after vaccination for ages ≥65 years (31). Declines in protection against infection with Delta have been observed in Israel (16), the UK (2021), and Qatar (3233)...

It is not yet known whether breakthrough infections increase risk of long COVID (otherwise known as post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 or PASC), a constellation of debilitating and lingering symptoms following infection. 

It seems we ought to know whether the vaccinated COVID patients are at higher risk, lower risk or the same risk of long COVID by now.  But CDC isn't telling. 

It is remarkable that the VA was allowed to publish these honest data.  Perhaps all those vaccine mandates for federal employees had something to do with it?

5 comments:

  1. I'm seeing a growing realization a/o acknowledgement among PH research and policy contributors that it's not that CDC data was poorly standardized a/o fragmentary, but has actually been engineered to thwart analysis and the representation of undesirable information and outcomes.

    They've probably recognized that something was up for a while. But it seems like they started to turn with the recent escalation of NIH / CDC research results and claims from implausible to ridiculous and embarrassing.

    My suspicion is that the CDC had basically known what to expect from vaccines and NPI's from the start and been stage managing COVID response all along.

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  2. Sad, but this fodder for Vax and Vax some more. Immunity as a service, whether you need it or not.

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  3. Dr. Nass,

    I am a Togus veteran. I have had two appointments with my primary and two with my specialist plus two blood draws since Jan 2020. Only upon entry to clinic for blood draw has covid even been mentioned and it was a quick almost embarrassed series of questions regarding sense of smell and if I had been out of state recently. Neither my primary or specialist (video conference) hinted at anything covid and both offered welcome advise about healthy long term living. Salads and moderate exercise stands out from one. And melatonin stands out from the other. Both recommended less alcohol. One because it could contribute to higher blood pressure and the other because it disrupts sleep. Aside from that I have received a few emails from VA ‘corporate’ that ‘vaccines’ are available if I choose. I am so far very pleased with the Togus VA’s hands off approach to all of this.

    ❤️

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  4. Only the middle of the VA study is the truth Dr. Nass. It opened with ‘vaccines’ good and closed with ‘vaccine’ passports good. That’s probably how they got published in science magazine.

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  5. Exaggerating effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines

    29 Studies on Vaccine Efficacy that Raise Doubts on Vaccine Mandates ⋆ Brownstone Institute
    https://brownstone.org/articles/16-studies-on-vaccine-efficacy/

    22 Studies and Reports that Raise Profound Doubts about Vaccine Efficacy for the General Population
    AdministratorOctober 30, 2021
    Guest Post by Dr. Paul Elias Alexander

    The evidence is pouring in that the COVID-19 vaccines are not as efficacious as advertised against the Delta variant that became dominant in the fall of 2021. The Delta is learning how to thrive. The evidence has further accumulated to show that the vaccinated are showing viral loads (very high) similar to the unvaccinated, and the vaccinated are equally as infectious.

    The gestalt of the findings implies that the infection explosion globally – post double vaccination e.g. Israel, UK, US etc. that we have been experiencing may be likely due to the possibility that the vaccinated are driving the epidemic/pandemic and not the unvaccinated. We have been vaccinating against the wild-type virus that is no longer a pressing concern, even if the vaccine data so far suggests effectiveness for the demographic most susceptible to severe outcomes.

    The data seems to suggest that the infection is 50:50 vaccinated versus unvaccinated while the UK is reporting 70% of deaths in the vaccinated Delta variant though there is debate on differential based on < 50 versus >50 years old. It appears that it is the vaccinated who are getting infected and thus transmitting the virus at a far greater rate. This unravels the demand for universal vaccine passports.

    The Marek’s disease(‘leaky’ non-sterilizing non-neutralizing imperfect vaccines that reduce symptoms but do not stop infection or transmission) in chickens model, and the concept of the Original antigenic sin (if an initial exposure or priming of the immune system is sub-optimal Eugyppius e.g. vaccination with the 2020 spike protein epitopes, then the sub-optimal priming is basically “fixed.” That is to say, it prejudices the life-long immune response with re-exposure due to the immune memory or learning.

    Cases in point:

    1) Gazit et al. out of Israel showed that SARSCoV2naïve vaccinees had a 13.06-fold 95% CI, 8.08 to 21.11 increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected.”

    Chemaitelly et al. reported study which showed that the vaccine efficacy Pfizer declined to near zero by 5 to 6-months and even immediate protection after one to two months were largely exaggerated.


    Supplementary Table 11. Effectiveness of the BNT162b2 vaccine against any SARS-CoV-2 infection, symptomatic SARS-CoV- 2 infection, or asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, with effectiveness estimated using multivariable logistic regression analysis of associations with a PCR-positive test, January 1, 2021 to August 15, 2021, adjusting for sex, age, nationality, reason
    for PCR testing, prior infection, and calendar week of PCR test .
    Original sample size
    N %
    1,318,985 22,957 1.4 18,196 1. 87,656 5.5 56,353 3.5 40,119 2.5 26,425 1.7 16,594 1.0 8,544 0.5
    137,557 81.7 5,912 3.5 4,946 2.9 7,311 4.3 4,796 2.8 3,505 2.1 1,974 1.2 1,408 0.8 909 0.5
    901,253 82.7 10,304 0.9 8,368 0.8 56,707 5.2 40,613 3.7 31,078 2.9 21,635 2.0 13,403 1.2 6,641 0.6
    SARSCoV2 positive Univariable regression analysis
    Multivariable regression analysis
    Vaccine effectiveness
    % 95% CI
    0.0 31.8 77.2 73.9 67.2 51.6 6.3 0.0
    0.0 48.5 82.1 73.9 63.8 39.6 0.0 0.0
    0.0 15.2 69.7 69.0 61.8 44.3 0.0 0.0
    N %
    Any SARS-CoV-2 infection

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