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| Online here |
Clips:
Among 51011 working-aged Cleveland Clinic employees, the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine booster was 30% effective in preventing infection…The risk of COVID-19 also varied by the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses previously received. The higher the number of vaccines previously received, the higher the risk of contracting COVID-19…
…the more recent the last prior COVID-19 episode was the lower the risk of COVID-19, and that the greater the number of vaccine doses previously received the higher the risk of COVID-19.…
A possible explanation for a weaker than expected vaccine effectiveness is that a substantial proportion of the population may have had prior asymptomatic Omicron variant infection….
The evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus necessitates a more nuanced approach to assessing the potential impact of vaccination than when the original vaccines were developed.
My notes:
1. The WHO said, before we had vaccines, that we needed 50% plus effectiveness before they would roll them out. I remember them saying that, very clearly. We’re now down to a paltry 30% effectiveness yet are still rolling them out. As if nothing has changed since the beginning. This study says we have to research more on the recent variants, vaccine effectiveness, and develop more “nuanced” approaches. Which might mean ending vaccine mandates, everywhere for everyone. (I’m fully vaxxed but against mandates).
2. YouTube has censored the above article. Dr John Campbell had to take down the video he did in this yesterday. Even though — and I did watch it — he merely presented the findings of the study. He presented the findings clearly and fairly and did not spin them in any way. A cancellation of the study! I’m guessing YouTube was triggered by the study’s finding that “the greater the number of vaccine doses previously received the higher the risk of COVID-19…”. Also the very low bivalent vaccine effectiveness. It’s not supposed to be like that!
3. The study is on the pre-print server Medrxiv a joint venture between Spring Harbor Laboratory, the British Medical Journal and Yale University. Spring Harbor is home of eight Nobel Laureates and is ranked #1 in the world in research into molecular biology and genetics; the BMJ is the oldest, and arguably the most respected, medical journal in the world; and Yale is…, well, …Yale.
Each of the study authors has dozens or even hundreds of previous publications and copious honours. Against this YouTube has… what exactly? In terms of expertise? They don’t tell us. We don’t know a single thing about who or why it censors this study. So we are entitled to assume it’s an intern who’s been given the nuclear button, a 20-something wokester, perhaps, maintaining the established narrative (vaccine mandates for all, forever, for they are ever wonderful and ever effective). I know, I know, this is like the fallacy of argumentum ab auctoritate. But still.... There’s people that know stuff; and there’s them’s that don’t, so much.
And all up, it ought be debated, not censored, and therefore:
4. It’s an outrage! Shame on YouTube …
I wonder. What does YouTube think it achieves by this censorship? Surely only more suspicion that the truth is being withheld (because it is) and more determination to find the original study (as I’ve done) and more conspiracy theories? Like big Pharma is out to sell as many vaccines as they can. Aren’t they?
ADDED (9 Jan): we are reminded that “correlation is not causation”. Which ought be, for accuracy, “correlation is not necessarily causation”. Because correlation sometimes (perhaps often) is causation. But still, we must be careful, in noting that correlation is not (necessarily) causation, that we don’t think that correlation can’t be causation.
In any case it’s been pointed out the the number of jabs may not be causing the higher incidence of Covid. The causation may run the other way: people more likely to catch Covid -- the elderly and the infirm -- are the ones getting more boosters. True. Perhaps.
But:
1. The authors have controlled for various factors, like age, gender, hire cohort, job category, number of COVID-19 vaccine doses prior to study start, and epidemic phase when the last prior COVID-19 episode occurred.
2. They also acknowledge that the causation might have been the other way around: that is that people more likely to catch Covid were more likely to have taken a jab. But they explain (under “Discussion”) why they believe that is unlikely. Partly because...
3. The group was not a random study of random people. It was a group of professionals in the Cleveland health system, all of similar age and likelihood to catch Covid.
4. The authors wonder at the causation themselves and suggest more study. They don’t know why they might have found these results and do not immediately blame the vaccine.
5. Adams appears not to have read the study itself before making his comments.
