Friday 18 February 2022
Today’s data shows that 100% of the deaths today were people over 50; averaging out to 99% for the last 7 days or 96% for people over 60.
Today 67% of the deaths were among the jabbed which averages out to 72% for the last 7 days but please be aware that on the 12th of February NSW Health did not reveal the vaccine status of 24 deaths (17% of all deaths for the last 7 days).
Older age is a significant risk factor for serious illness and death for COVID-19, particularly when combined with significant underlying health conditions.
Vaccine Efficacy Against Death Once Hospitalised
Vaccine Efficacy Against Death Once Hospitalised for the 18th of February, 2022 was calculated to be POSITIVE at +32%.
The 7 day moving average is also POSITIVE at +4% (140 lives lost).
Please note this blog begins its calculation once the patients are admitted to hospital. I am not taking into account if and how well the vaccine stops infection and hospitalisation when you vaccinate the healthy general public.
What’s happening in NSW hospitals?
Today 18 February, 2022
7 Day Moving Average
For hospitalised patients we have only recently been given dose numbers but we are not given the age or comorbidity breakdown. There is also a small number of people with an unknown status classified as ‘other’ and we also had the 12th of February disaster where NSW Health released a large amount of deaths with later reporting without vaccination status for the over 65 year olds who are the main group who are dying.
About
Vaccine effectiveness against death once hospitalised simply looks at the latest known hospital occupancy of the vaxxed verses the unvaxxed and the deaths associated with the same cohort.
This calculation is measuring severe cases (hospitalised patients) and then comparing them against the final outcome and the number of deaths for this cohort. Vaccination rate of the population is irrelevant for this calculation as this method does NOT allow the vaccine to receive glory for vaxxing the healthy. This formula is a better measuring stick as it shows the true vaccine efficacy (protection) of the vulnerable who often have comorbidities once hospitalised.
To validate information sources — data should be checked forwards and backwards — and I chose to tackle the problem by focusing on the hospital leg.
Disclaimer:
Please note that we are measuring vaccine efficacy once hospitalised so we are not including vaccination rates in the population but I do consider this and show this calculation towards the end of this page.
We know that COVID-19 disproportionately targets the elderly and sadly the publicly available data provided by NSW Health is incomplete and we do not know the age breakdown or comorbidity of the people in hospital hence our limitations to draw authoritative conclusions. Therefore the vaccine efficacy once hospitalised against death as calculated here should be treated as a rough guide and should only be applied to the older vulnerable age groups (+50) as they are the ones that are dying and are represented by the data. I will attempt to access all the required data but at this stage these —real world— numbers are what we have to work with.
This calculation could be better if we had hospitalisation data by age group and comorbidity for each individual case.
Data:
Patients in hospital:
*Data taken from the COVID-19 Risk Management Dashboard put out by NSW Health on the 16th of February. This data is not broken down by dose, age or comorbidity. Sources with links to NSW Health official data sources are shown at the bottom of this page.
Today’s Deaths:
Sadly, NSW Health is reporting the deaths of 15 people with COVID-19; eight women and seven men.
One person was in their 50s, two people were in their 60s, four people were in their 70s, five people were in their 80s and three people were in their 90s.
One of these people was aged under 65. They were unvaccinated and had significant underlying health conditions.
Two people had received three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, eight people had received two doses and five people were not vaccinated.
*Data taken from NSW Health twitter update with links to the tweets further down this page.
Calculation:
*Above data table shows the calculation to obtain Vaccine Efficacy Against Death Once Hospitalised.
Comparing the Vx/UVx ratios for death to the Vx/UVx ratios for hospitalisation to derive effectiveness is better than using vaccination population ratios because it removes any confounders for hospitalisation.
In research when investigating a potential cause-and-effect relationship, a confounding variable is an unmeasured third variable that influences both the supposed cause and the supposed effect. Therefore calculating efficacy closer to the final outcome (death) can give us a more reliable number. For example since people with comorbidity are mainly the ones who are dying it would be wrong to use the vaccination rate of the healthy general public to work out vaccine efficacy for the comorbidity group who are dying. This is especially true when we know from Israeli data that people who suffer other medical conditions have lower vaccination rates in almost all age groups.
Vaccine Efficacy Against Death Once Hospitalised for February 18, 2022:
= POSITIVE +31.9%.
Seven Day Average:
The 7 Day Moving Average Vaccine Efficacy Against Death Once Hospitalised for the period starting from February 12, 2022 to February 18, 2022
= POSITIVE +3.9%
Deaths by Dose, Comorbidity And Age Breakdown
*We do not get a detailed list of vaccine status for each case and age group but we do get totals and sometimes they give us the comorbidity details as well excluding the unusual activity we had on the 12th of February where they withheld the data for the over 65 year olds.
Today’s Conclusion
We can see that the elderly with comorbidity are the ones who are dying and for some reason in Israel people with comorbidity have a lower vaccination rate than the healthy general public as they were probably less impacted by the job mandates. I would assume this fact would be similar in Australia but since we do not have this data we are forced to use the higher vaccination rate of the healthy general public.
Therefore if we accept that 94% of the adults in NSW over 50 are vaccinated; today’s vaccine efficacy against death by considering the relative vaccination rates was calculated and shown in the table below.
However the author of this blog feels this calculation is flawed and this is why this blog is focused on comparing the Vx/UVx ratios for death to the Vx/UVx ratios for hospitalisation to derive effectiveness which reduces any confounders for hospitalisation but this calculation above is shown for transparency.
This author desires to save lives and believes in all hands on deck as both the vaccinated and unvaccinated require early treatment especially if the individual is elderly and has multiple comorbidities.
We should allow doctors to be doctors and permit them to use repurposed drugs in the early stage of this disease as our elderly need the vaccine plus early treatment.
Data Source:
Hospital Occupancy Data By Vaccine Status Was taken From The COVID-19 Risk Management Dashboard
https://aci.health.nsw.gov.au/
NOTE:
Please remember I currently do not have access to detail mortality data broken down by age and vaccine status so the signal reliability will be crude and perhaps should only be applied to get an indication how well the vaccine protect the vulnerable (elderly) who represent the vast majority of the deaths.
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