{"id":202256,"date":"2022-01-03T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=202256"},"modified":"2025-01-10T15:08:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T15:08:18","slug":"covid-vaccines-a-reality-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/01\/covid-vaccines-a-reality-check\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid Vaccines: A Reality Check"},"content":{"rendered":"

28 Dec 2021 – The latest unbiased facts on covid vaccine safety and effectiveness.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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European soccer players with sudden cardiac issues.<\/p><\/div>\n

Covid vaccine effectiveness<\/h4>\n

Prior to the most recent immune-evasive mutation (omicron), covid vaccine protection against infection and transmission decreased to zero within about half a year<\/a>, whereas protection against severe disease and death in senior citizens decreased from about 95% to about 50% within 6 to 9 months<\/a> (depending on the vaccine, see chart below).<\/p>\n

With omicron, protection against symptomatic infection has been reduced to just a few weeks<\/a>, while protection against severe disease remains uncertain. However, there are indications that omicron really is significantly milder<\/a> than previous variants, even in people without prior infection. Otherwise, omicron would have posed a major challenge to the entire global vaccination campaign.<\/p>\n

Studies that claimed more durable vaccine protection typically combined several time frames (e.g. January to August instead of just August) or age groups (vaccine protection is more durable in younger people, but their covid risk is also much lower). An example of the latter is the Qatar study<\/a>, the participants of which had a median age of just 31 years; in participants older than 60, protection against severe disease had fallen to 60% within 7 months, but this was only shown in the annex.<\/p>\n

Vaccine protection against infection and severe disease (all age groups):<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Vaccine protection symptomatic infection and severe disease (Nordstroem et al)<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n

During 2021, covid vaccines may have saved several hundred thousand lives<\/a> by mitigating the impact of the covid waves in spring (Alpha), summer (Delta) and early winter (also Delta). This can easily be seen by comparing countries with a high vaccination rate to countries with a low vaccination rate (e.g. Western Europe to Eastern Europe), or by comparing the impact of covid waves before and after vaccination in countries with a high vaccination rate (see next chart).<\/p>\n

Importantly, prior to the winter wave of 2021\/22, only about 20% to 50%<\/a> of people in Western Europe and most US states had developed natural (i.e. infection-acquired) immunity against covid. In Latin America, parts of Africa (including South Africa) and parts of Asia (e.g. India), about 50% to 80%<\/a> had developed natural immunity against covid. In some of these places, the flu has already returned<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Much lower covid deaths in high-vaccination EU countries:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Lower covid deaths in high-vaccination EU countries (Financial Times)<\/p><\/div>\n

Since autumn 2021, several countries reported a negative vaccine effectiveness<\/strong> against infection, that is, vaccinated people had a higher infection rate than unvaccinated people. In countries like the UK, raw negative vaccine effectiveness reached up to minus 100%<\/a> in some age groups (i.e. vaccinated people had double the infection rate compared to unvaccinated people; see next chart). In response, several countries simply stopped publishing<\/a> this data.<\/p>\n

The most likely explanation for this observation is a catch-up effect<\/strong>: for several months after vaccination, vaccinated people had a lower<\/em> infection rate than unvaccinated people. As a result, there are more \u201crecovered\u201d people \u2013 which have the strongest and most durable<\/a> protection \u2013 among the unvaccinated than among the vaccinated. Once vaccine protection has declined, infections among vaccinated people start catching up.<\/p>\n

A more troubling explanation for negative vaccine effectiveness against infection, proposed by some skeptics, would be some kind of negative immune effect<\/strong>. For instance, it is known that covid vaccination can cause a temporary immune suppression<\/a> (lymphocytopenia) that can last for up to a week and possibly longer, and that likely plays a role in the well-documented post-vaccination spike<\/a> in coronavirus infections. It is also known that vaccinated people, once infected, develop only a partial immune response<\/a>, which might increase their risk of re-infection.<\/p>\n

However, data from the UK and elsewhere shows that a vaccine booster dose temporarily restores vaccine protection against infection, although again only for a few months<\/a>, or even just a few weeks against the immune-evasive omicron variant (see chart below). Nevertheless, this temporarily restored protection appears to support the \u201ccatch-up hypothesis\u201d.<\/p>\n

Claims of negative vaccine effectiveness against severe disease and death<\/strong> (i.e. covid vaccines making covid worse), promoted by some hardcore vaccine skeptics, have currently no basis in reality<\/a> (they were based on statistical effects and age-group differences).<\/p>\n

However, such a negative effectiveness, which would point to antibody-dependent disease enhancement (ADE<\/a>) or negative antigenic priming (OAS<\/a>), cannot be totally ruled out against future coronavirus variants, due to the short-term nature of covid vaccine trials.<\/p>\n

UK: Negative vaccine effectiveness against infection:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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UK: raw vaccine effectiveness reaching almost minus 150% (DailySceptic)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Video: Cardiac arrests in athletes<\/h4>\n