OpinionTrending Commentary

Just Be Consistent: A Modest Proposal Regarding Covid And Vaccines

The Blue State Conservative

The Proposal: Count vaccine deaths the same way that deaths from Covid are counted.

You may recall that in March of 2020, the CDC issued a rule that for any death where if  the decedent had been diagnosed with a Covid infection in the preceding 90 days, then that death should be attributed to Covid.  Since there was a shortage of good tests available at that time, even the suspicion of a Covid infection was sufficient to attribute that death to Covid.

The result of the rule has been that large numbers of Covid deaths have been reported, but the waters have been muddied a bit.  While deaths involving pneumonia or influenza could reasonably be expected to be complicated by Covid, it is difficult to see how a stroke, heart attack, cancer, or even an automobile accident or gunshot wound could be significantly affected by a Covid infection.  Nonetheless, the CDC claimed that such reporting was essential to track the progress of Covid in the population, and that a few odd deaths from other causes was tolerable.

 

Covid Associated Deaths (CAD)

Given that all these deaths involved a Covid infection, but that the causal relationship to Covid might be a bit sketchy in many instances, the first part of my proposal is to modify slightly how these deaths are recorded.  I would propose that all deaths involving a Covid infection should be called Covid Associated Death, or CAD.  This would eliminate the question of actual causality, and would allow for accurate tracking of the virus in the population.

No longer would we need to question whether the Covid infection was truly the cause of death, or whether it was merely coincidental.  It would also eliminate the arguments around the lethality of a Covid infection that has been the subject of such controversy over the last two years.

To some degree, a new subject of argument has arisen around the lethality of the experimental mRNA therapeutic injections, somewhat loosely called Covid vaccines.

Many authorities have vigorously maintained that such injections are perfectly safe for men, women, and children, not to mention any non-binary recipients.  Assertions to the contrary have been attributed to the ignorant protestations of an anti-vaxer fringe element in our society, and should not be taken seriously.

Nevertheless, as of this date, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has recorded 20,244 deaths attributed to the Covid vaccines currently deployed in our United States.  That number is over 45 times greater than the number of deaths reported for all other vaccines in total over more than thirty years.  The US government is objecting to people using these facts to suggest that the vaccine is harmful and its distribution should be halted immediately.  The government claim is that since the VAERS system is voluntary, that means the data is unreliable, and things aren’t as bad as they appear.  Meanwhile, the US, and governments around the world, continue to push for universal vaccination in the face of opposition from the people they represent.

 

 

Vaccine Associated Deaths (VAD)

Much of the controversy could be addressed by the second part of my proposal.  I suggest that, just as was done for Covid deaths, we create a classification called Vaccine Associated Deaths, or VAD.  Like the Covid deaths, any death of any person who had received the vaccine or any vaccine booster in the preceding ninety days would be classed as a VAD.

Such classification would eliminate any arguments around whether a blood clot or stroke or cardiac arrest was caused by the vaccine, or if it was merely a coincidence.

It would have the further benefit of simplicity, just as the CDC mandated approach to counting Covid deaths simplified matters.  No longer would there be questions around did the vaccine cause the death or not.  No longer would there be arguments about the accuracy of death counts.  The actual mechanisms of death could be left to researchers while simple numbers could be reported by media and government authorities without all the present confusing disagreements.

Since the VAD and CAD measures have the same time basis, and since they report all deaths that include the associated conditions of Covid infection or vaccination, a further advantage is that the numbers become easy to compare.  With such simple numbers, most people should be able to evaluate the relative risks and benefits of vaccination.

To see how this all might work, we can look at an example.

 

CAD numbers are widely reported

For the CAD numbers, we can use the CDC numbers of 800,939 since that number includes the small percentage of people who died from Covid, along with the much larger percentage of those who died with Covid, but who also had a significant number of other fatal conditions.  That number is the total from the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, to December 15, 2021. According to OurWorldinData, 351,754 deaths occurred in 2020.  The remaining 449,185 deaths were during 2021.

Consequently, the correct number of Covid Associated Deaths for 2021 would be about 449,185.

 

VAD numbers take a bit more work

The VAD number is a bit more challenging, and we will have to do some calculation.  I will try to make the calculations as clear as I can, so please bear with me.

We can’t use the VAERS number directly, as that only counts the number of people whose deaths were directly caused by the vaccine.  Typically, these people died within a few minutes, to generally no more than a few days after vaccination.  This number is over 20,000 now, and while tragically large, is only the number of people who directly died from the vaccine.  In order to make a proper comparison with the CAD numbers we need to know the number of people who died with the vaccine.

 

The average number of people vaccinated over the year 2021 in the US

We will have to estimate the average number of people fully vaccinated in the US in the year 2021.  We cannot use the number currently vaccinated since that number has been growing more or less steadily since the beginning of the year.  Looking at the data, there are 203 million people fully vaccinated at this time, or about 61% of the population.  Since the rate of vaccination was high early on, and has slowed somewhat since about May, we estimate the average for the year at about 40% of the population, or about 133 million average over the year.

This is actually a low estimate since the elderly were vaccinated at a much higher rate, and over 90% of those over 80 years of age are now vaccinated.  This group also has the highest normal death rate with over 13 deaths per hundred annually.

The most accurate estimates would look in detail at the number vaxxed by age and over time, but we don’t have access to data at that level of detail, so we will have to make do, knowing that our estimate will be low but – good enough for government work, as the saying goes.

 

Total and average number of deaths in 2021

The CDC also maintains statistics on numbers and causes of deaths.  We are told that there were a total 2,854,838 deaths from all causes in 2019.  We will assume that the number of deaths increased only slightly to 2.9M in 2021.  If we then apply the average number of vaccinations for the year, 40%, that would mean that about 1.16M fully vaxxed people died in 2021, for a low end estimate of the number of Vaccine Associated Deaths.

 

The VAD estimate is low

We know this is a low estimate for at least two reasons. First, the majority of deaths are among the elderly who, as we pointed out earlier, are more highly vaxxed.  Consequently, there will be a higher percentage of VAD among the elderly.

Second, of the ten leading causes of death, heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease, and flu/pneumonia account for about 70% of all deaths.  All of these causes have been associated with vax deaths, especially among younger populations where such conditions have previously been rare.

 

Risk ratio VAD to CAD

Looking at the numbers, we can now compare the official Covid Associated Death numbers to the Vaccine Associated Deaths to get an estimate of the relative risk of vaxxing.  We can take the VAD estimate of 1.16M and divide by the CAD estimate of about 450K deaths in the same time period, to get a ratio of 2.58, meaning that the risk of dying with the vaccine is 2.58 greater than the risk of dying with Covid.

 

Objection, your honor!

One of the first objections will likely be that many of the vaxxed elderly would die of old age anyway, and shouldn’t be counted in the VAD totals.  But exactly the same argument applies to the CAD numbers, especially given The fact that early in the pandemic, the average age of death from Covid was over 80.  That age has been declining, probably because so many of the elderly have been used up and are no longer available to be counted in the death statistics, although it appears they can still vote.

Given that the current life expectancy is less than 79, it is clear that both the CAD and VAD data reflects the deaths of people who are well past their sell-by dates so that in the worst case, their deaths may have been advanced by a few weeks to months at most.

A second objection is that Covid is a viral disease with a known set of symptoms and mechanisms of death, so it is improper to compare it to a vaccine that stimulates immunity.  Consider, though, that the vaccine also has known lethal mechanisms that are similar to the virus, as well as new and similar suspected effects.

How much difference is there between a virus which when it infects the body, introduces RNA based genetic material into the cells, induces them to produce viral proteins that when released from the cells can stimulate an immune reaction in the body, and a vaccine which introduces RNA based genetic material into the cells, induces them to produce viral proteins that when released from the cells can stimulate an immune reaction in the body?  Anyone care to argue fine points?

Others may argue that I used a lot of approximations to arrive at my conclusions.  I won’t disagree, and invite anyone who wishes to make their own calculations using the same publicly available data and their own assumptions.  I am confident that they will arrive at similar conclusions even though the precise numbers will likely differ.

 

Some apples look like oranges and vice versa

There is one problem in that the CAD and VAD numbers are not mutually exclusive.  Given the number of “breakthrough” cases, and cases of fully vaxxed people dying of Covid, there will clearly be deaths that could be counted in both categories.  It is my opinion that such “double counts” will have little effect on the final risk result.  There is, in fact, recent research which indicates that the vaccines actually make people more susceptible to a Covid infection two to three months after the last booster shot.

This is an expected result of ADE resulting from the vax.  Such an effect would actually increase the CAD count with little change in the VAD, reducing the risk ratio.

Still, though, a factor of almost 2.6 is a pretty strong risk ratio for vax to Covid deaths, and not likely to change much from double counting or other adjustments.

 

Clearing muddy waters

CAD and VAD estimates put the associated deaths on the same footing for comparison.  Of course, the real comparisons would use numbers comparing deaths resulting directly from the two agents.  Italy has taken steps to use direct causally linked data in estimating actual Covid deaths, and have found that only about six to seven percent of previously reported Covid deaths can be directly linked to Covid.

This proportion is in line with an estimate from our own CDC of about six percent.

 

Truth is precious and should be used sparingly – Mark Twain

Such honesty is discouraged, however, since it does not align with the narrative that Covid is a dangerous and deadly disease that presents an existential threat that can only be countered by extreme government actions such as lockdowns and vaccination mandates, and we will just have to get used to giving up essential liberties in order to gain temporary safety.  Welcome to the new normal.

Can you imagine what might happen if it were recognized that the vax was far more deadly than the disease, and that the disease was no more deadly than a severe seasonal flu?  How would our governments ever begin to justify themselves to their people?  What would they do with all those respirators, facemasks, vaccine doses, and mandate violators?  Would they have to refund the fines?  Would they be expected to apologize?  Unthinkable!  Better to double down and never let the questions arise. Tyranny means never having to say you’re sorry.

 

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free

The upshot is that we can never have a rational discussion based on actual facts until we stop manipulating data to support a particular political objective.  This discussion shows that putting vaccine death reports on the same footing as the Covid death reports paints an entirely different picture of the risks involved.  Tyrants manipulate data to manipulate people.  Honest governments do not fear truth.

 

Photo by Jordan Bracco on Unsplash

Content syndicated from TheBlueStateConservative.com with permission.

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David Robb

David Robb is a regular contributor to The Blue State Conservative and a practicing scientist who has been working in industry for over 50 years. One of his specialties is asking awkward questions. A large part of his work over the years has involved making complex scientific issues clear and understandable to non-specialists. Sometimes he even succeeds.

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One Comment

  1. I’m all for this but as an accountant I need to point some issues out. If this is people who died within 90 days of receiving a shot, the number would need to be halved if you believe that everyone received two shots in 2021, or split into a third or quarter of you believe everyone received the shots Within a month of themselves. I would personally go two a quarter but then increase it to account for the fact that people who died didn’t actually live the full year. This is closer to 400k, which seems pretty dang high still.

    There is also an easy way to see the upper limit of COVID caused deaths. Take the increase in year over year deaths, back out the expected increase, and remove the increase in year Over year deaths like suicide which were caused by lockdowns. This will naturally account for the lack of flu deaths. Then you have your actual COVID deaths. This number is much closer to having a second flu season.

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