More broadly, its hard to say what is being stated without the raw data. We can certainly say that the data is not being provided in a straightforward, accessible way to the public. Instead, what is a health issue, has become highly politicised. As well as the lack of available date, we also have unknowns around the data collection (eg no distinction between deaths 'with' or 'from' covid, that people are not considered fully vaccinated until 2 weeks after their 2nd jab).
This itself is a huge cause for concern. We should have open access to all this info - with all hands to the pump and all voices and interpretations - and try to let the statistics speak for themselves.
> And the linked-to sources even say "Comparing case rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations should not be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection. Vaccine effectiveness has been formally estimated from a number of different sources and is summarised on pages 4 to 14 in this report."
but then when I look at those pages, I see:
"Large clinical trials have been undertaken for each of the COVID-19 vaccines approved in the UK which found that they are highly efficacious at preventing symptomatic disease in the populations that were studied. The clinical trials have been designed to be able to assess the efficacy of the vaccine against laboratory confirmed symptomatic disease with a relatively short follow up period so that effective vaccines can be introduced as rapidly as possible.
Post implementation real world vaccine effectiveness studies are needed to understand vaccine effectiveness against different outcomes (such as severe disease and onwards transmission), effectiveness in different subgroups of the population and against different variants as well as to understand the duration of protection.Vaccine effectiveness is estimated by comparing rates of disease in vaccinated individuals to rates in unvaccinated individuals. Below we outline the latest real-world evidence on vaccine effectiveness from studies in UK populations. Where available we focus on data related to the Omicron variant which is currently dominant in the UK."
I read that as saying that they are highly efficacious at preventing symptoms. They also say they are comparing vaccinated to the unvaccinated, but the only reference I see to the unvaccinated is on page 14, and it doesn't have any numbers!
The uncooked data (meaning, total case numbers) are available. Do the math yourself. You'll see you are wrong.
You can also see that of the 34705 people who has a case, 1166 were hospitalized. Of the 321868 people who were fully vaccinated and had a case, 2409 were hospitalized. Ergo, those vaccinated and who get a case are fare less likely to be hospitalized.
> without the raw data
You'll never have access to the rawest of data as that includes personal medical information that isn't supposed to be public.
> We can certainly say that the data is not being provided in a straightforward, accessible way to the public
The government data sources were more straight-forwarded than the interpretations you linked to.
I had no problem with the data, other than it being more technical than I can easily understand.
> we also have unknowns around the data collection
Which is irrelevant to the thesis that those with two shots are more likely to be infected than those with no vaccinations.
Even if the thesis is correct, the analysis purportedly demonstrating the link is clearly wrong.
And the thing about medical data is there will always be unknowns.
That source for New Zealand completely misreads the data.
The left side of the first chart (and mos shows cases per 100,000 population total, NOT per population in each specific vaccination class.
You have to adjust based on the population in each class.
https://www.health.govt.nz/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-... shows that 95% of the population are fully vaccinated, and 4% are not vaccinated. That's a ratio of about 20-25x.
Your reference states that for every unvaccinated person with a case, there are 6 fully-vaccinated people with a case.
Which means the unvaccinated are about 4x likely to have a reported case than the fully-vaccinated. But that's "ONE FOURTH the Infection Rate", not the almost complete opposite "SIX TIMES the Infection Rate".
Now, I can wrong about the numbers. The above is a back-of-the-envelop calculation by someone who knows little about the specific NZ details.
But they are enough to point out that the stated "SIX TIMES the infection rate" is a drastically wrong understanding of the data.
Going back the main link (to boriquagato.substack.com), I also read "i took the raw data from the vaccine reports and compared cases per 100k population" and "by dividing cases per 100k in vaxxed by unvaxxed".
Is it really the same miscalculation?!?
Why divide "cases per 100k population" instead of "cases"? Otherwise, as the number of unvaccinated people goes done, their case numbers go down, even if the infection rate is higher.
And the linked-to sources even say "Comparing case rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations should not be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection. Vaccine effectiveness has been formally estimated from a number of different sources and is summarised on pages 4 to 14 in this report." (quoting https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... )