Are vaccine passports killing people?
Fully vaccinated people now suffer more infections than unvaccinated people.
As our Provincial and Federal government increases the shrill cries to get vaccinated or be punished, the latest COVID data shows that people who are vaccinated have a higher rate of infection than those unvaccinated in the general population for everyone over 30 years of age.
A more complete table would include the populations from which the rates are calculated, which can be inferred from the data. Knowing the population, it is possible to differentiate the infection rate per unvaccinated person and per vaccinated person in the general population rather than in the two subsets listed.
The adjusted chart looks like this.
While the data confirm the value of vaccination (since the infection rate among vaccinated people is 0.33% and among unvaccinated people is 1.6%) the data also show that more cases are occurring among vaccinated people than unvaccinated, a function of two things - the relative sizes of the two populations and the fact that vaccination is less than 100% effective in preventing infection.
The NHS data are transparent about the effectiveness of the vaccine choices. The range of effectiveness runs from 60 to 85%. Among the population 109 million vaccinated persons reported by the NHS, somewhere between 17 million and 44 million are no better off than the unvaccinated despite their having been vaccinated. I assume the same proportions hold for Ontario data, and if so the vaccinated but vulnerable population is about the same size or larger than the unvaccinated population but are free to assemble, eat indoor in restaurants, go to the theatre, travel by air, or go to baseball games if they have download their “vaccine certificate” while those unvaccinated are vilified and deprived of similar freedoms.
What is clear is that “breakthrough cases” are not an insignificant artifact in a vaccinated population, but now comprise the bulk of new cases. Government policies to become “fully vaccinated” or suffer moral opprobrium, fines and job losses are not materially reducing the case counts and the refrain that it is the unvaccinated population who are straining the health care system or responsible for most of the spread is hollow. We have reached the point where governments need to recognize the right to choose to eschew vaccines and risk becoming infected is personal and not a public health hazard any longer.
There is a mountain of evidence that natural immunity, acquired be becoming infected and recovering, is more robust than a vaccine. Sure the individual who avoids vaccination and follows the route to natural immunity risks a serious infection, but the data show that after 2 years of pandemic only about 5% of the population became infected and of those only about 2% suffered serious disease. Choosing not be vaccinated is a sensible option now that the risks of overloading the health care system have passed. Governments should not interfere with that choice.
The government’s encouragement to have two doses of vaccine raises another question. “We are saving lives” is the popular narrative from our leaders. But are they? The latest Ontario data covering the period from December 2020 to September 2021 show the death rate per 100,000 people infected is higher for those with two doses than with one dose.
The good news is that vaccination works. The bad news is that two doses are worse than one dose for persons over 70. The worse news is that our leaders think it appropriate to fire people, fine people, or deny people access to services like indoor dining, gymnasiums, or baseball games unless they submit to a second dose which seems to provide only a limited increase in protection but may increase their chances of ending up in hospital or dying from the disease.
This is Canada under its current leadership. Think about it. Democracy has consequences but death should not be among them. Since we have the benefit of “expert advice” to our leaders, leave your mind open to the possibility that vaccine passports and vaccine mandates are a deliberate attack on freedom with no public health benefit.