Who’s dying if so many vaccinated?

[Flossie44]

So if the vaccination rate is about 80%, who’s in hospital/dying? Is it the 20% unvaccinated?

I think threads like these are often people who want to justify to themselves not having the vaccine.

That's my impression too - "oh look, vaccines don't really work, so I was right not to follow the herd."

But face masks provide minimal protection to the wearer they protect the people around you. I wear a face mask in case I infect someone , I know that if I am around someone not wearing a mask and positive they will likely infect me

Wrong thread Peaseblossum?

I was replying to @Thewiseoneincognito

some of the remainder have only had one vax
I suspect many who have died have other vulnerabilities ie serious disease/health issues & mostly people whose immunity is compromised like advanced old age, undergoing or recently had chemo or medication which destroys their immunity, blood disorders including leukaemia & soon on -the problem is even if vaccinated their immune response is not great so they may not be protected by the vaccination - if they get another booster it may help keep their immune response

@knittingaddict

I think threads like these are often people who want to justify to themselves not having the vaccine.

That's my impression too - "oh look, vaccines don't really work, so I was right not to follow the herd."

I have indeed had both vaccines and promote vaccination. I’ve two CEV children who are unvaccinated due to age. It was a genuine question and concern of mine.

@DivGirl

Scotland publish the numbers on this - it doesn’t make for comfortable reading.

This graph appears to back up the ONS data I mentioned. Most admissions and deaths in vaccinated (ie older, more vulnerable people). Most infections however in unvaccinated (ie younger adults and children). Covid is, as is always the case with infectious diseases, more likely to kill older and vulnerable people irrespective of vaccination status.

@YellowClouds

The vaccine doesn't stop you from dying

Exactly. I've got some bad news for you but wait long enough and the death rate amongst the vaccinated will be 100%! It's 100% among the unvaccinated!

@Peaseblossum22

But face masks provide minimal protection to the wearer they protect the people around you. I wear a face mask in case I infect someone , I know that if I am around someone not wearing a mask and positive they will likely infect me

You’re right, that’s why the governments poor messaging on them will be a catalyst for our next lockdown.

No one else is wearing them so why should I bother, and so on and so on until eventually maybe 5% of people wear them with very little effect.

Meanwhile you have a highly contagious respiratory virus being passed between people until it takes hold in a weak host who will either be very ill or potentially die from it due to their age regardless of whether or they are vaccinated.

It’s absolute madness and a scandal in the making.

@NeverTalkToStrangers

You need to look again at the excess death numbers over the past 18 months Pootle40. If most of the deaths were "with but not of covid" in people who would have died anyway then we wouldn't have had the huge mortality spikes we did.

Well I've seen the letters from almost every health board in Scotland and the numbers attributed directly to death caused by Covid was rarely in double figures in each. By the time many people are in a care home then the situation is precarious and many infections kill.

A double vaccinated 80 year old has the same level of immunity as a non-vaccinated 50 year old (I don't have a quotable source for this but it was on a radio 4 statistics podcast and really stuck in my mind).

The vaccine is not a perfect "get out of jail" card but clearly a very healthy, vaccinated 80 year old could likely survive Covid but a non-vaccinated one is much less likely to.

If 100% of the population were vaccinated then every Covid death would be one of a double-jabbed person but the overall death rate as a proportion of the population would be much lower than in a non-vaxxed population.

@DivGirl

Scotland publish the numbers on this - it doesn’t make for comfortable reading.

What's uncomfortable about it? I don't get what is so difficult to understand here. Majority of adults are vaccinated. People die of multiple causes and may have Covid when they die. Might not be the direct cause of death. Hence proportionally more double vaccinated people will appear to die. They are not all dying because of fecking Covid!

@Peaseblossum22

I was replying to *@Thewiseoneincognito*

Apologies.

@knittingaddict

It’s this we’ve had 3 family members with terminal cancer but they’ve had (symptomless ) covid at the end and it’s covid that’s gone on death certificate not the cancer that was the real cause of death

So did they die from cancer or covid? You can be a terminal case of cancer and still have a reasonable amount of time left and die from covid, not cancer. Presumably you are aware of how far the cancer had progressed?

I find this a bit suspect really. My mother died 2 years ago - she had terminal cancer. What actually killed her in the end was an (unspecified) infection that her body couldn't fight because she had cancer. Her cause of death was listed as cancer.

If terminal cancer patients who died with Covid have Covid as their cause of death, does that mean statistics will show a decrease in people dying of cancer?

(Not getting at either of the people I've quoted, but the wisdom of putting Covid as the reason for death in people that would otherwise have died within the same time frame.)

Hi @BordelDeMerde it shouldn't as that should be recorded as one of the reasons also (there can be 3 listed)

@BordelDeMerde

I think a lot of statistics will be screwed for a long time.

My neighbors death certificate says she died of Covid. She had 3 tests. Each was negative. But because she had a temperature and water in her lungs they assumed false negatives.
It's a mess!

Also much easier to just say it was Covid when they were so busy in the hospitals.

My Nanna had cancer and has Covid on her certificate as she tested positive 3 days before she died in hospital. She definitely died of breast cancer.

post mortems show far more details than death certificates
In the pm they give a list of conditions & will show the specific one that caused death although it shows the interaction between the various condition
point is would they have died at that particular time without covid

@knittingaddict

It’s this we’ve had 3 family members with terminal cancer but they’ve had (symptomless ) covid at the end and it’s covid that’s gone on death certificate not the cancer that was the real cause of death

So did they die from cancer or covid? You can be a terminal case of cancer and still have a reasonable amount of time left and die from covid, not cancer. Presumably you are aware of how far the cancer had progressed?

They were at end of life care for the cancer and all had been double jabbed.

The wards were routinely testing for covid and they then got moved to covid wards. One died on the covid ward and the other 2 had been moved back up yet because they’d had a positive test in the 28 days prior to death it was recorded as covid

I have to say as well the jabs clearly worked and not one even had low oxygen levels or a cough ! Just positive tests so I guess from a bad situation that’s something positive to see from it

But there is the other side of this - 28 days many people were in hospital longer than that & died of covid
& there were some stats that showed how many people died of complications caused by covid months after they left hospital

Somehow today we don't seem to be able to cope with a vaccine that is 80+% effective because it isn't 100%

The issue really isn't how many people are dying (although at an individual family level, of course that is important), it is about NHS capacity to manage very sick people, potentially for prolonged periods of time. Infection rates, hospitalisation rates and death rates have been on the up for months and months now. Of course, many of those dying with/of covid, are over 80 and even with the vaccination, failing health all round is problematic. So where is the tipping point? I have spent some time in hospital this week and chatting to nurses, they say that winter started in April. They were very on edge at the prospect of actual winter.

@mumwon

post mortems show far more details than death certificates In the pm they give a list of conditions & will show the specific one that caused death although it shows the interaction between the various condition point is would they have died at that particular time without covid

Not everyone has a post mortem, especially if the doctor is "happy" to sign off the death certificate based on a medical condition that was present at the time and was likely to have been the cause. It's really only unexplained or unexpected deaths that go down the PM route.

@MatildaIThink I think you misunderstood my point which was the opposite of what you say.
Someone who has six months to live and dies now is dying of covid. Covid has taken away their last six months. It may not seem important to you but if I had six months left it would matter.

To all those disparaging the fatalities caused by covid there is one measure that's clear. The excess death rate. Where the deaths in any given country exceed the norm for that period, usually a year.

www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker

ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

Doesn't it? How many vaccinated people have died?
Quite a number, I believe. The vaccine reduces the likelihood of getting seriously ill, it doesn't eliminate the possibility altogether.
Some vaccinated people are still immunosuppressed too, and it won't be as effective in reducing the severity of illness.

That's exactly the meaning of the last sentence. It appears alarming at first glance but is to be expected with high uptake and not 100% efficiency.

A doctor explained this to me. It's a lot of unvaccinated people plus a very small percentage of vaccinated (which looks like quite a lot because they are the largest number overall. It is obviously a much, much larger % of the unvaccinated than the vaccinated.