Studies On COVID Infections Of Vaccinated People Challenged
As the country continues their push through the COVID-19 pandemic, the COVID vaccine has provided some intriguing storylines.
A fight continues with getting people vaccinated, but that problem will always exist in a country that holds "freedom" above all else. So as much as some thought the vaccine will be the complete endgame, it won't be. Not for the country, but for individuals, it will be.
As the latest report from the CDC shows, those who are vaccinated are protected at a 99.99% rate from hospitalizations and death due to COVID if they have a breakthrough case. So those who are vaccinated have their endgame. But as the numbers in some states like Louisiana show, the unvaccinated have a lack of protections that can cause severe outcomes.
But the vaccinated have actually come under fire in recent weeks, even though they have taken the steps to protect themselves. In Louisiana, those who are vaccinated are now being punished by being placed under the same mask mandate as the unvaccinated. But why?
Why are the vaccinated being punished? It essentially comes down to a couple of studies that suggest those who are vaccinated who have a breakthrough case of COVID carry the same "viral load" as the unvaccinated. A person's "viral load" is the amount of virus a person has in their system, and if that number is high, they run a greater risk of spreading the virus.
However, the studies that have led to this conclusion are now being called into question by an expert.
Nationally recognized statistician Nate Silver has come out with some very critical questions about the "Provincetown" and "Wisconsin" studies that are being used to draw these conclusions.
Both studies have two separate, but equally troubling issues. In the Wisconsin study, the sample size is limited to only 79 people. Silver adds the study "completely lacks the statistical power to differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinanted (sic) people."
The Wisconsin study also suffers from "truncated samples" because some people who were imperative to the study were eliminated. Notably the people with lower, harder to detect virus were eliminated. Those people would be the ones with "lower viral load", and were not included.
While in the original study that led to this movement, the Provincetown study is a "convenience sample" according to Silver. Because it was only based on those who chose to be tested, and not a random sample. This is an issue because only those with severe cases are likely to seek testing, especially after having the vaccine.
So what does Silver say we should do? Well, he points us to a study from the United Kingdom that has a massive sample size. This UK study has about 50,000 people included in the sample size, and did not have any of the bias aspects of their sample. What did that study reveal?
The UK study showed that vaccinated individuals with breakthrough cases carry lower "viral loads" of the vaccine compared to the unvaccinated. Which completely unravels the story created by these other two troubled studies. It also shows that the vaccinated should not be punished with restrictions or mandates.
Silver finished up his Twitter takedown by going directly at the New York Times...
With a very well respected statistician coming after the New York Times for their irresponsibility in pushing this "anti-vaccine" narrative, it will be interesting to see if the publication retracts their stories. From that point, it will be intriguing to see what other news outlets do the same, and then when government officials follow.