Covid vaccination status for CF members

[Montanan]

The vaccine passport debate isn't new. It started in 1897 during a plague pandemic

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/med...?ocid=msedgntp


"Vaccine passports have been touted by some as our ticket to normalcy -- easily accessible proof of immunization and a reward for those who got their shots. They've also been called invasive and ineffective. The debate over proof of vaccination as a requirement for entry dates back more than 120 years. The first time certificates of vaccines were required, health officials were fighting a plague pandemic.

In the 1890s, the Government of British India enacted a series of measures in an attempt to stop the spread of the plague, which included requiring travelers to prove they'd been vaccinated against the bacterial disease. But colonized people living in India then saw government-mandated vaccine certificates as an invasive measure meant to curb travel and control citizens' movements."

[CatNewBee]

Guess you like science and statistics

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...1111/eci.13554

[Montanan]

Further delay in store for Australia's vaccination roll out plan has led Prime Minister Scott Morrison to abandon earlier targets of immunising every eligible Australian by the end of the year.

Australia's COVID-19 vaccine rollout has sustained another blow, after manufacturer Novavax said its plans to produce 150 million doses a month were delayed until the second half of the year. Novax has circled supply chain shortages for the hold-up, which have dashed its hopes of maximising output by May or June.

Focus on Australia's alternative vaccine sources has intensified after the Federal Government's Thursday announcement that the AstraZeneca vaccine — which was poised to form the backbone of the national vaccine rollout — is no longer recommended for those under 50 due to its potential link to rare blood clots. The Federal Government has confirmed it has secured another 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to partially fill the gap left by AstraZeneca, but those doses will also be delivered in the latter half of the year.

Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly has not precluded ordering doses of the Moderna vaccine variant, but no plans have been announced. A government spokesperson also ruled out the potential of Australia ordering doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — the use of which has now been suspended by US health officials, following separate reports of extremely rare blood clotting side effects.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/new...?ocid=msedgntp

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

There is a very simple way to check this, for goodness sake. It's the demographic measure of excess mortality.

We don't have exact numbers in any case -- this is an impossible task. But excess mortality will tell you better than anything what the population has been through.

It will tell us the totality of the impact of the pandemic, and perhaps more importantly, the impact of our actions. But it will be a difficult (although not impossible) task to use this approach to ONLY identify Covid-19 deaths.

There are so many confounding factors given, as LE says, the fact that 2020 was far from a normal year. There have been far fewer deaths on the highways, and far more due to delayed healthcare in non-Covid areas. There have been fewer environmental deaths due to reduced pollution levels, but more due to mental health issues. All of this will be counted in the gross measure of excess-deaths.

But there is a far, FAR simpler way to count Covid-19 deaths; use the well-established Primary Cause of Death assignment. This data already exists.

Excess death could be used to corroborate (or challenge) this number. But as I say, no one has ever challenged the methodology of assigning Primary Cause of Death prior to the insane politicization of this pandemic.

[boatman61]

What politicization...
There's been more politicization about the vaccines than the virus here in Europe..
The only people ranting about politicization are the ones with political agendas..

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by boatman61

What politicization...
There's been more politicization about the vaccines than the virus here in Europe..
The only people ranting about politicization are the ones with political agendas..

I guess you would know .

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I guess you would know .

Yup.. keep reading the posts you lot post..

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by danstanford

Sorry Gord, I have read your post twice and am not sure what you are saying about these 23%. Are you saying that they are counted in the stats as Covid deaths or are not?

What the statistic indicates is, that the persistent falsehood that the number of COVID deaths is actually much lower than official statistics, and therefore the danger of the disease has been overblown, is FALSE. Not all deaths, of people “with” Covid-19, are attributed “to” Covid-19. In fact [if quoted 23% stat’ is true], about 23% of people who died “with” Covid, were NOT listed as having died “of” Covid.

On it’s own, it’s a somewhat meaningless statistic.
Not unlike the statistic that 100% of smokers die.

Survey after survey reveals a startling similarity. 50 percent of people test as “below average” to the rest of the population.* Income, intelligence, even height measurements, for a general population carry this disturbing trend.
And, the space between below average, and above average, is now just one person — I believe his name may be Phil.
If you look to the person to your right, know that one of you is probably below average. And if you don’t know who it is, it is probably you.

* “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ~ George Carlin

“65% of Americans believe they are above average in intelligence: Results of two nationally representative surveys” ~ Patrick R. Heck et al
➥ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ar...l.pone.0200103

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

It will tell us the totality of the impact of the pandemic, and perhaps more importantly, the impact of our actions. But it will be a difficult (although not impossible) task to use this approach to ONLY identify Covid-19 deaths.

There are so many confounding factors given, as LE says, the fact that 2020 was far from a normal year. There have been far fewer deaths on the highways, and far more due to delayed healthcare in non-Covid areas. There have been fewer environmental deaths due to reduced pollution levels, but more due to mental health issues. All of this will be counted in the gross measure of excess-deaths.

But there is a far, FAR simpler way to count Covid-19 deaths; use the well-established Primary Cause of Death assignment. This data already exists.

Excess death could be used to corroborate (or challenge) this number. But as I say, no one has ever challenged the methodology of assigning Primary Cause of Death prior to the insane politicization of this pandemic.

I agree with much of this, but Primary Cause of Death is NOT the way COVID deaths are usually counted. According to the World Health Organization guidelines, "COVID-19 should be recorded on the medical certificate of cause of death for ALL decedents where the disease caused, or is assumed to have caused, or contributed to death." https://www.who.int/classifications/...ID-19.pdf?ua=1


This is pretty broad, a lot broader than Primary Cause of Death. When you add that to the fact that most COVID deaths involve serious co-morbidities, and affects people near death anyway with huge disproportionality, you get death figures which don't necessarily give an accurate picture of the magnitude of the crisis.


You are right that excess mortality aggregates everything, including lives saved in traffic accidents, but I still think it's the best possible picture of what the population has been through. I think most demographers would agree with me on this. Excess mortality proves that this pandemic is worse than the flu in most places, and not as bad as the Spanish flu, in terms of overall effect on the population. It proves that COVID deaths are understated in most less developed countries and the U.S. (and in Russia, hugely), and are overstated in places like the UK, France and Sweden. See: https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...deaths-tracker

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

When you add that to the fact that most COVID deaths involve serious co-morbidities, and affects people near death anyway with huge disproportionality, you get death figures which don't necessarily give an accurate picture of the magnitude of the crisis.

In many places, the fact that COVID ran rampant through institutionalized seniors and other health-compromised people, is an indictment of the way those people are housed and managed. If those vulnerable people were better protected from the outset, the death toll from COVID would have been much lower. The fact that this wasn't recognized and acted upon right from the outset of COVID increased the magnitude of the COVID crisis, and added urgency to the need to invoke harsher and broader measures.

So... a different crisis, really, in the countries where vulnerable people get warehoused like that.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

This constant effort to downplay, or outright lie, about the number of Covid-19 deaths is just plain sad. We've been over and over this many times here. Anyone who actually wants real information can read how cause of death is assigned. It's been posted here a few times, and is easily available to anyone cares to look.

The approach has not changed with this pandemic. No one was questioning the approach until a pandemic became political. As I said ... sad.

There has been far more effort to "upplay" the deaths...let's look for reality.

The UK admitted earlier they assigned deaths as anyone who died after testing positive as a covid death. They finally figured out around 10% were completely unrelated but their system wasn't parsing the cause of death data so fully recovered people who died of completely unrelated causes were being recorded as covid.

Without the full report, I can't speak to the validity of the 23% number but the automatic upplay of deaths and vilification of those looking for reality is really a sad result. It's also supporting the true tinfoil hat crowd because it gives them ammunition for their fears.

[danstanford]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

It's also supporting the true tinfoil hat crowd because it gives them ammunition for their fears.

I have long thought this as well. It is similar in the environmental side of the equation where exaggeration and embellishment can give some a reason not to be alarmed by the truth. So much of the information out there today is statistically accurate but misses the truth if you apply some orders of magnitude.
It has also been my position that if you put me in charge I would likely try to scare people into behaving as well.
Dan

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

There has been far more effort to "upplay" the deaths...let's look for reality.

The UK admitted earlier they assigned deaths as anyone who died after testing positive as a covid death. They finally figured out around 10% were completely unrelated but their system wasn't parsing the cause of death data so fully recovered people who died of completely unrelated causes were being recorded as covid.

Without the full report, I can't speak to the validity of the 23% number but the automatic upplay of deaths and vilification of those looking for reality is really a sad result. It's also supporting the true tinfoil hat crowd because it gives them ammunition for their fears.

+/- 10% isn't horribly off. And the UK later went back and cleaned up a lot of those records, so their death numbers are now more accurate.

Even where there is pretty good record-keeping, there is likely a non-trivial number of COVID deaths that don't get recorded as such (they aren't always testing every single death for COVID), so it's just as likely that there's some under-reporting.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by GordMay

What the statistic indicates is, that the persistent falsehood that the number of COVID deaths is actually much lower than official statistics, and therefore the danger of the disease has been overblown, is FALSE. Not all deaths, of people “with” Covid-19, are attributed “to” Covid-19. In fact [if quoted 23% stat’ is true], about 23% of people who died “with” Covid, were NOT listed as having died “of” Covid.

On it’s own, it’s a somewhat meaningless statistic.
Not unlike the statistic that 100% of smokers die.

Survey after survey reveals a startling similarity. 50 percent of people test as “below average” to the rest of the population.* Income, intelligence, even height measurements, for a general population carry this disturbing trend.
And, the space between below average, and above average, is now just one person — I believe his name may be Phil.
If you look to the person to your right, know that one of you is probably below average. And if you don’t know who it is, it is probably you.

* “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ~ George Carlin

“65% of Americans believe they are above average in intelligence: Results of two nationally representative surveys” ~ Patrick R. Heck et al
➥ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ar...l.pone.0200103

You flatter me Gord..
But then people who consider themselves above average do tend to be condescending..

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I agree with much of this, but Primary Cause of Death is NOT the way COVID deaths are usually counted. According to the World Health Organization guidelines, "COVID-19 should be recorded on the medical certificate of cause of death for ALL decedents where the disease caused, or is assumed to have caused, or contributed to death." https://www.who.int/classifications/...ID-19.pdf?ua=1

From this same document under the definition of "Deaths due to Covid-19"

A death due toCOVID-19 is defined for surveillance purposes as a death resulting from a clinically compatible illness, in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case, unless there is a clear alternative cause of death that cannot be related to COVID disease (e.g. trauma). There should be no period of complete recovery from COVID-19 between illness and death.

So yes, they are prioritizing Covid-19 as the cause. But you seem to be suggesting this is somehow medically or epidemiologically incorrect. Obviously the medical professionals DON'T think this is the case, so what evidence do you (or anyone) have that this is the wrong? I'll side with actual experts in most cases.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You are right that excess mortality aggregates everything, including lives saved in traffic accidents, but I still think it's the best possible picture of what the population has been through. I think most demographers would agree with me on this. Excess mortality proves that this pandemic is worse than the flu in most places, and not as bad as the Spanish flu, in terms of overall effect on the population. It proves that COVID deaths are understated in most less developed countries and the U.S. (and in Russia, hugely), and are overstated in places like the UK, France and Sweden. See: https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...deaths-tracker

Well, I don't know what "most demographers" would say, but a search reveals some published work on the subject already.

Demographers put COVID-19 death toll into perspective

Demographic perspectives on the mortality of COVID-19 and other epidemics

And here's a fun one:
Socio-demographics predict behaviour during a pandemic

As I say, a study of excess deaths might be a way to understand the impacts of this pandemic. But using it to corroborate or challenge the death count would be challenging. It will be hard to separate out all the multiple impacts of the pandemic.

I love your referenced Economist paper. Hours of fun! What a great comparison. But unless I missed it, I don't think it attempts to address the complexity challenge I mention. Excess (or reduced) deaths have multiple causes in this pandemic year. It certainly shows the gross impact, but as most demographers would agree , assigning cause is far more complex.