Sky news article about delta. Deaths after 2 vaccines

[Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady]

This is the bit that scares me, and makes me think the "end" is no longer in sight.

As of 7 June, there have been 42 deaths in England of people confirmed as having the Delta variant and who died within 28 days of testing positive.

Of these people, 23 were unvaccinated, seven had had their first dose more than 21 days before and 12 had their second dose more than 14 days before.

Unless my maths is way off that means 28% of people who have died with delta variant have had 2 doses of the vaccine.

The vaccines were supposed to be our way out!

I'm not one for scaremongering so im sorry if this post comes across like that but I feel so so down today. I want a light at the end of the tunnel!

Full article:

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-delta-variant-60-more-transmissible-than-alpha-and-more-resistant-to-vaccines-phe-reports-12330068

Presumably after a year and a half of scratch ITU re-organisation they have a pretty good idea of what they would do if numbers increased, so the "no planning" probably includes that knowledge.

wintertravel1980 95% efficacy referred to severe cases in a trial. Unless there are 95% fewer severe cases and deaths in the doubly vaxxed covid positive than in the unvaxxed covid positive then this isn’t 95% effective in the real world. If 95% effective in real world cases, we would expect 5% of deaths to be doubly vaxxed, and not 28%.

The vaccines are not infallible, nobody ever said they were. But these numbers look very reassuring to me once you think about them.

If we oversimplify and approximate vaccination status to age, then unvaccinated (or less than 21 days post first vaccination) = under 40. Single vaccinated (or less than 14 days from second vaccination) = under 50. Fully vaccinated = over 50 or with significant health issues.

So you’ve got roughly 40% of deaths in the under 40s, 20% in the under 50s and 40% in the 50 pluses/people with serious health complaints. As we know, in the first and second wave the proportion of deaths which were of the over fifties and the seriously ill was enormous - in the high nineties according to my back of the envelope calculations on a train on my phone in my head. Let’s call it 95%.
If the share of the population which was previously making up 5% of the deaths is now making up 60% of the deaths then that means that the vaccines are, as we hoped, hugely effective.

The people who were genuinely believing that the vaccines were “100% effective against death” based on tests where about five people in the control group and zero people in the vaccine group died, were always destined to be disappointed though. Sorry.

@TimeTravellingBrain

NHS leaders have previously said that those dying after being fully vaccinated are also suffering from "profound co-morbidities".

This is no different to pre vaccination, or in currently unvaccinated. Those who die are predominantly very old, frail or suffering from co-morbidities. The vaccines were supposed to protect these people. If they aren’t doing that then why are they being rolled out to almost every person in the country, leading to the (in my view unacceptable) collateral damage and deaths of previously healthy younger individuals due to vax reactions, clots, heart damage etc.

@TimeTravellingBrain - the point is that the deaths would be significantly higher without the vaccine. We know the vaccine isn’t 100% effective.

@TimeTravellingBrain

wintertravel1980 95% efficacy referred to severe cases in a trial. Unless there are 95% fewer severe cases and deaths in the doubly vaxxed covid positive than in the unvaxxed covid positive then this isn’t 95% effective in the real world. If 95% effective in real world cases, we would expect 5% of deaths to be doubly vaxxed, and not 28%.

Doesn’t work like that TTB, because the people who are double vaccinated are, for the most part, far more vulnerable than the unvaccinated.

Once you’ve vaccinated all age groups your logic would hold good.

If 95% effective in real world cases, we would expect 5% of deaths to be doubly vaxxed, and not 28%.

It only holds true if our vaccinated group has got the same characteristics as the unvaccinated control group.

We know it does not. Our double vaccinated population includes much more vulnerable people (including care home residents where Covid CFR can be as high as 35%). Unvaccinated group is generally younger healthier individuals.

MaloInAnAppleTree
It’s difficult to quantify because there are so many unknowns, but in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups of people dying, nearly all are old or ill. Look at ONS statistics. What you are saying is the vaccines don’t work well in the group who we are trying to protect, but work in the group who aren’t likely to die or get seriously ill from covid. This makes no sense.

wintertravel1980

Unvaccinated group is generally younger healthier individuals.

So you are saying that the unvaccinated/partially vaccinated people who have died from the Indian variant so far are generally younger and healthier people? Where have you got this information from?

So you are saying that the unvaccinated/partially vaccinated people who have died from the Indian variant so far are generally younger and healthier people? Where have you got this information from?

No, of course, I am not saying this. I am saying that we cannot compare deaths in vaccinated and unvaccinated groups because the two groups are not comparable. It does not mean that people who died in the unvaccinated group are younger or healthier. We do not have this data, however, we know we cannot expect 5% deaths in the vaccinated group vs unvaccinated population even if vaccine is 95% effective.

If we’re saying that the deaths of unvaccinated people are not of younger people but in fact of octogenarians who haven’t been vaccinated then that’s still good news on vaccination efficacy because 95% of the over seventies have been vaccinated, so that remaining 5% are making up 40-60% of the deaths.

@MaloInAnAppleTree

The vaccines are not infallible, nobody ever said they were. But these numbers look very reassuring to me once you think about them.

If we oversimplify and approximate vaccination status to age, then unvaccinated (or less than 21 days post first vaccination) = under 40. Single vaccinated (or less than 14 days from second vaccination) = under 50. Fully vaccinated = over 50 or with significant health issues.

So you’ve got roughly 40% of deaths in the under 40s, 20% in the under 50s and 40% in the 50 pluses/people with serious health complaints. As we know, in the first and second wave the proportion of deaths which were of the over fifties and the seriously ill was enormous - in the high nineties according to my back of the envelope calculations on a train on my phone in my head. Let’s call it 95%.
If the share of the population which was previously making up 5% of the deaths is now making up 60% of the deaths then that means that the vaccines are, as we hoped, hugely effective.

The people who were genuinely believing that the vaccines were “100% effective against death” based on tests where about five people in the control group and zero people in the vaccine group died, were always destined to be disappointed though. Sorry.

That's all speculation though. Sorry.

It’s back of the envelope reasoning, but given the extraordinarily high vaccine take up amongst the over 75s and the huge proportion of deaths previously among the over 75s, I’d put my house on the vaccine efficacy coming up very high indeed once the numbers have been sliced and diced.

I'm very glad we have the vaccine, but as someone CEV the game seems very far from over.

I wouldn't like to see the effects of very high cases played out IRL in terms of hospitalisations and deaths, we need to analyse the data very carefully and unlock with care.

[quote Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady]This is the bit that scares me, and makes me think the "end" is no longer in sight.

As of 7 June, there have been 42 deaths in England of people confirmed as having the Delta variant and who died within 28 days of testing positive.

Of these people, 23 were unvaccinated, seven had had their first dose more than 21 days before and 12 had their second dose more than 14 days before.

Unless my maths is way off that means 28% of people who have died with delta variant have had 2 doses of the vaccine.

The vaccines were supposed to be our way out!

I'm not one for scaremongering so im sorry if this post comes across like that but I feel so so down today. I want a light at the end of the tunnel!

Full article:

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-delta-variant-60-more-transmissible-than-alpha-and-more-resistant-to-vaccines-phe-reports-12330068[/quote]
Given that those who'd been double-jabbed made up 99% of deaths per-vaccination, 28% is an extremely low number.

Based on those numbers, the deaths of the vaccinated cohort pre-vaccination could therefore be expected to be 2,000 or so, not 12.

Unless my maths is way off that means 28% of people who have died with delta variant have had 2 doses of the vaccine.

I think your maths is fine, but you want to compare that to who in the general public has had 2 doses of the vaccine. 55% in England, according to BBC today.

"The people who were genuinely believing that the vaccines were “100% effective against death” based on tests where about five people in the control group and zero people in the vaccine group died, were always destined to be disappointed though. Sorry."

^This. The vaccination effectiveness is based on tiny numbers of people who may never have been exposed to Covid. We have no idea how this mass experiment will pan out. Fingers crossed everyone.

. If 95% effective in real world cases, we would expect 5% of deaths to be doubly vaxxed, and not 28%.

No, that's not how the maths works, as the 2 populations had different vulnerabilities pre vax.

Say you have 10000 double vaxxed and 10000 unvaxxed.

Of those 10000 double vaxxed, because they are more vulnerable, we might have expected, say 5% to die if they all caught COVID, which would be 500.

Of the unvaxxed, we might expect say 1% if they all caught it, so say 100.

95% efficacy would reduce deaths in the first group to 25.

So we would have 125 deaths still, 20% of which are in the double vaxxed, even though the vaccine is 95% effective in that group.

(And if the vaccine is 95% in the second group too, we would expect 5 deaths there. So we would still have 30 deaths overall, with 83% from the vulnerable groups, even with a 95% effective vaccine.)

That's not reassuring if one has a comorbidity though, is it?

Well no... but that's like someone saying it's good news Cadbury's changed their recipe back to the original and someone replying 'hardly good news if one has a dairy allergy though, is it?'

It's a virus. The only thing that will be reassuring for 100% of humans is total eradication tomorrow. In the meantime, we can still say something is reassuring or good news. It's still reassuring for parents of 6 year olds that 0-12 year olds are in the lowest % death category.

What Winched said. It would be wonderful if the vaccine were 100.000000% protective but in the real world 90%+ is still amazing. A fully vaccinated octogenarian is still going to be far more at risk than an unvaccinated twenty something though.

I think we (as a country) need a proper analysis looking at the actual cases to try and understand what is going on, as back of an envelope guesses aren't really going to help.

I wish the government would listen to the BMA and make more sensible plans for the summer.

@winched

That's not reassuring if one has a comorbidity though, is it?

Well no... but that's like someone saying it's good news Cadbury's changed their recipe back to the original and someone replying 'hardly good news if one has a dairy allergy though, is it?'

It's a virus. The only thing that will be reassuring for 100% of humans is total eradication tomorrow. In the meantime, we can still say something is reassuring or good news. It's still reassuring for parents of 6 year olds that 0-12 year olds are in the lowest % death category.

The thing is, that people trot out "oh but people who died had co-morbidities or were over 50" as if that's all right then, those people's lives don't matter.

Actually there are several million people in groups 1-9, a huge swathe of the population. There are millions of people who are CEV, there are millions who are CV.

So there is a limit to how much reassurance can be gleaned from dismissing all those millions of people as collateral damage.

it is indeed great that kids are relatively unaffected but I would dearly love more sensible mitigation measures in schools; that's another matter.

@herecomesthsun - but surely a much more reassuring picture than would have been the case pre-vaccine!

@MaloInAnAppleTree

What Winched said. It would be wonderful if the vaccine were 100.000000% protective but in the real world 90%+ is still amazing. A fully vaccinated octogenarian is still going to be far more at risk than an unvaccinated twenty something though.

We were told for I think several months that the vaccines appeared to protect 100% from serious illness.

I did in fact have some reservations about this figure and have been waiting with interest for more data. Meanwhile, I'm really pleased we have effective vaccinations.

We are now told that only 5% of doubly vaccinated people get ill with the delta variant but that 28% of deaths are in doubly vaccinated individuals.

I am still very pleased to have been vaccinated but really would like more data on who is dying and what patterns the data show.

[quote Inastatus]@herecomesthsun - but surely a much more reassuring picture than would have been the case pre-vaccine![/quote]
yes. So?