US Center for Disease Control & Prevention posted the following science brief on May 26, 2021:
I had time to look briefly at the first 3 of their source studies that I opened, (all of them are preprints, not peer reviewed), and all of them employ deceptive designs that obfuscate the results (a usual tactic). I dissect them below.
(This post may be updated later if I have time to look at more of their references.)
Reference 13 cited in the CDC brief (the first reference in Table 1) has the following flaws:
1. To demonstrate lower infection rate (rate of PCR positives) among the vaccinated, they chose a matching cohort group that is actually NOT MATCHED for comorbidities. Someone who has preexisting conditions, or who may be more immune compromised, are much less likely to take the risk of the vaccines (many doctors advise their patients against the vaccines if they have comorbidities, because the vaccine trials explicitly excluded immune compromised people which includes many conditions such as cancer). This means the unvaccinated "controls" are more enriched with people with co-morbidities, especially if they're more educated on such matters, such as healthcare workers in their system that they analyzed.
2. To compare disease severity among the vaccinated PCR positives vs. unvaccinated PCR positives, they started with identifying "263 vaccinated individuals who subsequently tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during the study period following their first dose", and then matched them 1-10 to 2,630 unvaccinated individuals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during the study period. Even though in this case, they matched cohorts with comparable comorbidities, but for those who weren't vaccinated, it is far more likely that they're already symptomatic and visiting a doctor, where they'll get a PCR test, whereas the vaccinated people are more likely to be those trusting the "test" and the medical system, and suitably fearful, that they're more likely to get tested without any symptoms. So the vaccinated PCR positives should be expected to have less severe outcomes compared to the unvaccinated "controls" in such an unequal comparison. The proper way should have been to match for similar severity at the time of PCR tests.
3. Also, what they compared was "severity of COVID-19 illness", but we know that for unvaccinated people, they've been attributing hospitalizations and deaths to COVID as long as they tested positive, while for vaccinated people, they tend to insist the illnesses and deaths are unrelated to the vaccine or COVID. So that could very well play into it here too.
Reference 14 cited in the CDC brief (the second reference cited in Table 1) has the following flaw:
- They compared 325 PCR positives, and 320 controls, for the proportion of vaccinated people within each cohort, and concluded that vaccinated people occupy a higher proportion in the control population than the PCR positive "infected" group. The problem is that they only matched case and controls by age, sex, and geographic region, but again NOT BY COMORBIDITIES. It stands to reason that people with comorbidities are more likely to avoid the vaccine, and also are more likely to test positive as they have lower immunity. So it's unsurprising that unvaccinated people would occupy a higher proportion in the PCR positive group, just for that reason alone.
Reference 15 cited in the CDC brief (the 3rd reference cited in Table 1) has the following flaw:
Similar to point #3 of reference 13 above, this study states: "Outcomes were Covid-19 related hospitalization and death." Once again, they get to define which hospitalizations and deaths are "Covid-19 related", and which ones are not. The proper comparison should have been the proportion of total hospitalizations and deaths, from all causes, between the vaccinated vs. unvaccinated & partially vaccinated patients in their record, after matching for age, sex, comorbidities, etc.
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Maggie Zhou received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 1997, and worked as a computational biologist for a number of years. She is currently an independent seeker of truth.
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