Vaccine efficacy at the individual level but not the societal level? What gives?

We still don't know what is going on with Covid-19.  

All we know is that the promises made at the beginning haven't been delivered on and that forecasts made have not eventuated.

It is a novel virus.  This is not unexpected. 

What was unexpected is for so many nations to abandon long established pandemic response plans for disproven approaches such as masks, lockdowns, and massive repression.  It is as if, when given a chance to respond responsibly by sharing what is known and unknown and letting free citizens make their own best decisions, most governments defaulted to draconian, authoritarian coercion.  

It is still happening and it is still not working because we still don't know what is going on.  

Two interesting updates from critics of the statist narrative and coercive approach are IM and El Gato Malo.  Both anonymous, both data driven, both open to any explanations which cover the data we do have.

From IM, who tends to focus on national data trends, there is Why Does No One Ever Talk About Sweden Anymore?  For enthusiastic proponents of authoritarian national healthcare, Sweden has been the bête noire.  A scapegoat at the beginning and now a success to be hidden.

One of the most consistently repeated trends of COVID has been the premature declarations of victory from areas with a perceived level of “success” in “controlling” the pandemic.

It’s happened in countries all over the world — Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Mongolia — just to name a few examples. They all have been praised for their ability to “control” the virus with masks and public health measures, only to then see cases invariably skyrocket.

Incompetent media reporting and dangerously ignorant “expert” pontifications have been an infuriatingly persistent aspect of COVID messaging, with their incoherent ravings becoming increasingly desperate as time wears on.

On the flip side to inaccurate praise, the incomprehensible inability of experts to get anything right is perhaps best exemplified by Sweden.

“Experts” and the media declared Sweden was the world’s cautionary tale, a dangerous outlier who shunned The New Science™ of masks and lockdowns and stuck to established public health principles and pre-pandemic planning.

Over much of 2020 and into 2021, Sweden was persistently criticized by the media and on Twitter arguments due to comparisons to their neighbors, a standard curiously not applicable to most other countries around the world. Yet as we’ve progressed further into 2021, those same media outlets have suddenly gone quiet as their chosen victors have flailed unsuccessfully against ever increasing outbreaks.

Then he gets into the data to make his case.

The second piece is The vaccinated superspread hypothesis, assessing the riddle of more recovered, more vaccinated, and more dying despite a lower CFR variant by el gato malo.  His hypothesis is plausible but hopefully unlikely.  But all he is doing is trying to come up with an explanation which fits the facts.  Hard to do since so much of our data is a mess.  

The mystery he is trying to explain is this.  (Apologies for not rectifying his annoying quixotic absence of capitalization.)

there has been a strange riddle in the covid data of late.

we have a lower CFR variant of the disease that has become predominant. delta has roughly 1/3 the case fatality rate of prior variants (like alpha)

far more people have acquired immunity from having had and recovered from covid. this immunity is long lasting and extremely effective. (much more so than vaccines)

high risk cohorts were significantly reduced last year. there is less “dry tinder” now.

we have FAR more people vaccinated now. it’s 50-90% in many places and in many high risk groups. last year it was zero.

and yet in many of the high vaccine uptake places, we’re seeing deaths from covid (and excess mortality) rise to levels ABOVE last year.

this has led many to posit that vaccines not only don’t work, but that they make you worse.

but on an individual level, this does not appear to be true. (though there is quite a lot of evidence that vaccines induce higher risk in the two weeks post administration and that this is being accounted for dishonestly, added to the “unvaccinated” butcher’s bill, and artificially enhancing reported VE.

BUT, even if we control for this, vaccines are showing efficacy in preventing deaths among the vaccinated. it’s more like 50% than the 90%+ being claimed, but VE against death in the 50%’s should still be showing BIG community effects with so many people in the high risk groups vaccinated.

but, on a societal level, it’s not. we’re seeing breakouts to new seasonal highs vs last year and epidemics in covid death rapidly following vaccination campaigns. (MORE)

His piece is riddled with links to the underlying research and data.  It really should be read in the original, but this gives a taste of both what he is seeing and how he thinks it might be explained.