It's worse than fear porn, it's playing vaccine-hesitant people for suckers.
Berenson omitted or ignored the footnote in this study that explicitly explains why the numbers look the way they do:
"9. For the 10-59 age group, the vaccinated population will on average be older than the unvaccinated population due to age-based prioritisation in the vaccine roll-out. As mortality rates are higher for older people, this will increase the mortality rates for the vaccinated population compared to the unvaccinated population."
The researchers anticipated that some grifter like Berenson would try to misrepresent the study so they included the footnote.
Undeterred, Berenson puts out this hysterical lie, for money, and credulous FReepers continue to post it.
I can grasp the idea that everyone may see things differently, but I can see how people could get the impression that you are on the other side.
I usually don't run across your commentary. I guess we simply frequent different threads most of the time.
But Mojo. The vaccinated ain't sposed to die. They sposed to LIIIIIIIVE!!!!
Remember 'save and effective'? I do.
#FormerlyKnownAsMojo
That is an interesting comment. It would be nice if they broke all the age groups up like they did for the older groups then we could see that for ourselves.
I actually went to the ONS website, downloaded the file and graphed it out for myself. What these plots exclude is the January to March data which had an interestingly low initial rate of death for the vaccinated that then explodes at the same time the overall death rate is dropping as the winter Covid spike fades. The low death rate was when priority should be given to the most susceptible and the death rate spikes far above what is shown in this chart when the vaccine reaches 10 to 20% range. These plots start in mid March when vaccinations penetrated to 30% of the population.
The ratio of vaccinated to unvaccinated deaths fluctuated in the 1.5 to 2.0 range for much of the time between June and September while vaccination rate went from 65 to 73% of the population in that age range. However the last data point spikes up to a ratio of 2.3 right around the time they approved the vaccine for children there.
A finer demographic breakdown would be nice. I accept that a disproportionate number of the unvaccinated are going to be in that 10-18 range that weren’t being given the vaccine in most of this period. It looks like they are issuing updates every to to three months so I will keep my eyes open for the next one that should come soon and see what the eligibility for the youngest end of this range does to the death rates.
Can you explain three things for me?
Here is more:
According to this (arguably dated) Wikipedia breakout of the UK population (ca. 2011) into 5-year age bands, the "older people" are roughly uniform in breakout to the rest of the population.
Ages attained (years) | Population | % of total |
---|---|---|
0–4 | 3,914,000 | 6.2 |
5–9 | 3,517,000 | 5.6 |
10–14 | 3,670,000 | 5.8 |
15–19 | 3,997,000 | 6.3 |
20–24 | 4,297,000 | 6.8 |
25–29 | 4,307,000 | 6.8 |
30–34 | 4,126,000 | 6.5 |
35–39 | 4,194,000 | 6.6 |
40–44 | 4,626,000 | 7.3 |
45–49 | 4,643,000 | 7.3 |
50–54 | 4,095,000 | 6.5 |
55–59 | 3,614,000 | 5.7 |
60–64 | 3,807,000 | 6.0 |
65–69 | 3,017,000 | 4.8 |
70–74 | 2,463,000 | 3.9 |
75–79 | 2,006,000 | 3.2 |
80–84 | 1,496,000 | 2.4 |
85–89 | 918,000 | 1.5 |
90+ | 476,000 | 0.8 |
Are the "older people" those in the 55-59 band? Do you fellow FReepers who are 55-59 think of yourselves as "older people" yet?
Are we going to start calling those in the 50-54 band "older people" too?
According to the above table, the "older people" in the 55-59 band make up 8.7% of the population of 10-59, the smallest of the 5-year bands between 10-59. Assuming that not all of them were vaccinated, are we really to believe the implication of the footnote that less than 8% of the data is skewing the rest of the chart?
I conclude that the footnote 9 overstates the influence of "mortality rates for older people" on this data.
-PJ