Covid vaccine still working

... and they're safe. But the benefits are not so clear-cut now ....

A bit off-piste today ….

This post is motivated by recent conversation with another anti-vaxxer, who is deep down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories on climate change and renewable energy as well. Why do these always go together? It’s so tiresome having their half-baked theories rammed down your throat. But there might be something in it this time ….

Since my last post on the subject, there has been a surge of covid deaths in New Zealand. We’re rapidly catching up on the rest of the world. Back in early June there had been fewer than 1200 deaths in our population of 5 million. Now, just a couple of months later, that number has doubled, and our current daily death rate per capita is higher than the USA’s.

It could be worse. Our strategy still looks to have been successful. According to Worldometer, New Zealand’s total number of deaths per million now stands at 485, similar to Australia’s and about half the global average of 826. The worst are still the early victims of the virus. In the UK and the USA the death rate is about 5 times as large. But the margins are getting closer. In my last post, Peru’s rate (the worst) was 25 times as large ours. Now its only 13 times as large because while our death rate has increased, theirs has declined.

But how are our vaccinated faring compared with unvaccinated? Are the vaccinations still working?

An update through early August of the key table from the NZ government’s Health website is shown below.

The benefits aren’t as strong as before, indicating that the vaccinations may not be as effective against the current strains of covid. But they’re still worth having. Although only 15 percent of the deaths to date (346 of 2362) are among the unvaccinated, that unvaccinated group over the same period was less than 10 percent of the total population. Extrapolating from those rates, if nobody was vaccinated, the total number of deaths by now would have been greater than 346 x 10 = 3460, rather than the actual total of 2362. That’s at least 50 percent higher.

What about the surge of deaths since my last post? Comparing the above table with the corresponding one then, we see that over that 2 month wave there were 1083 extra deaths (i.e., 2362-1179), of which just 100 (i.e., 346-246) were among the unvaccinated. That’s about 9 percent of deaths among the unvaccinated. But in that period only 5 percent of the population was unvaccinated. Extrapolating from those rates, if nobody had been vaccinated the total number of deaths over that 2 month period would have been around 100 x 20 = 2000, rather than the actual total of 1083. That’s nearly double the number.

Or, to put it another way. Of those 100 deaths among the unvaccinated in the last two months, nearly 50 would still be alive if they’d been vaccinated.

The price of ignorance!

Among the elderly, deaths associated with covid may in fact be due to other complications. Covid may have been just the last straw that broke the camel’s back: they may have died with covid, rather than from it. In any case, benefits of the vaccine appear (at first sight) stronger for those less than 60 years old (an age span that includes the person I was talking to). For that age bracket, over 13 percent of the deaths in the last two months (10 of 75 deaths). But in that age band, at least 10 percent are unvaccinated (i.e., the vaccination rate is lower than 90 percent for the under 60). Taking that into account, it appears that the risk is only slightly worse among the unvaccinated compared with the vaccinated.

I must admit that was surprised by the results of this analysis. I fully expected a more clear-cut advantage through being vaccinated. It seems there are still advantages, though they appear to be diminishing over time. But even if there were no personal advantage, every responsible person should do the right thing and get vaccinated. The percentages have be high to achieve herd immunity.

Curiously, death rates are now lower than they were at the start of the outbreak a couple of years ago - as shown by those much higher death rates in countries like the UK, the USA, and Peru. Is that due to herd immunity that’s enjoyed by everybody (including the unvaccinated), and/or built-up immunity through incidental exposure to low amounts of the virus, and/or improvements in treatment, and/or weakening of the strains. Hopefully the medical community can provide some answers.

On the other side of the coin, among the 12 million Pfizer shots that have been administered in New Zealand, there have been just three deaths that may be attributable to their side-effects. Not bad odds. And all three cases are currently with coroners to determine the cause of death.

In the meantime, I’m glad my own doses and boosters are up to date. It’s better for me, and better for everyone else too.

The changing statistics are interesting, so I may revisit the topic in another couple of months ….