Significant proportions of people admitted to hospital, or dying from covid-19 in England are...

[MisterNiceKitty]

...vaccinated—this doesn’t mean the vaccines don’t work

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/08/25/significant-proportions-of-people-admitted-to-hospital-or-dying-from-covid-19-in-england-are-vaccinated-this-doesnt-mean-the-vaccines-dont-work/

Kit Yates, Senior Lecturer, University of Bath, UK.

The BMJ [British Medical Journal:https://www.bmj.com/]

"More vaccinated people are dying of the delta variant of covid than unvaccinated people, according to a recent report from Public Health England. The report shows that 489 of 742 people (65.9%) who died of the delta variant within 28 days of a positive covid test between 1 February 2021 and 2 August 2021, had received at least one dose of the vaccine. 54.1% (402 of 742) had received both doses. This seems like an alarming set of statistics, but with an imperfect vaccine and high vaccination coverage, it is exactly what we would expect."

I think the author is referring to Table 5: Attendance to emergency care and deaths of sequenced and genotyped Delta cases in England by vaccination status (1 February 2021 to 15 August 2021)

Link to the PDF: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1012644/Technical_Briefing_21.pdf

Although I don't quite see those specific numbers

The applicable row seems to be the one labeled: Deaths within 28 days of positive specimen date (pages 22-23)

Among the columns listed are

[FarPoint]

1. I'm not getting on this band wagon

I struggle to see this as evidence based.

[Ocelot II]

4. The headline is misleading; the numbers are explained in the article.

It's not what the headline would lead one to assume.

[Xoan]

2. Click bait.

[mainer]

3. More important: what are the comparative death rates?

When 99/100 people are vaccinated, if one vaccinated person dies and the lone unvaccinated person dies, that's a 100% death rate for the unvaccinated but only 1% death rate for the vaccinated. Even though it could be reported that 50% of the dead are vaccinated.

[EarlG]

5. It makes sense

The elderly are significantly more likely to die of Covid than young people.

The elderly are also significantly more likely to be vaccinated than young people.

So when an elderly person dies of Covid, it's much more likely they will have been vaccinated. From the article:

Here’s a simple thought experiment: imagine everyone is now fully protected with covid vaccines—which are excellent, but not 100% effective at preventing death. Some people who get infected with covid will still die, although far fewer than without vaccinations. With complete vaccination coverage all of these people will be fully vaccinated—100%. That doesn’t mean vaccines aren’t effective at reducing death—the overall number of people dying from covid will have been reduced dramatically.

The risk of dying from covid doubles roughly every seven years older a patient is. The 35-year difference between a 45-year-old and a 80-year-old means the risk of death between the two patients has doubled five times—equivalently it has increased by a factor of 32. An unvaccinated 70-year-old might be 32 times more likely to die of covid than an unvaccinated 35-year-old. This dramatic variation of the risk profile with age means that even excellent vaccines don’t reduce the risk of death for older people to below the risk for some younger demographics.

As the article states, it doesn't mean that the vaccines don't work.

[brush]

6. Not credible. The "or dying" phrase in the headline is misleading...

and seemingly meant to scare readers.