"Not wanting to be vaccinated goes against all common sense." A fact check.

They make me somewhat ready, that academic intelligentsia. "You can say what you want about those vaccines, but they've done a lot of good!" I heard this weekend from an unnamed Prof. Dr. in medicine. A nice hook to hang the latest analyses of Hans Verwaart on.

However, writing this post, I saw Jan Bonte on Twitter railing against Femke Nijboer. Well, not only against Femke Nijboer, but yesterday it was her turn. The reason was this column in which she not only asked for hate mail at the end of 2021 (there so Jan still complied with) but in which she also says about critical students:

"The vaccine would not have been adequately tested. If you want to do a scientific study, but you don't believe in science, what are you doing here [at university] anyway? [...] Not wanting a vaccination goes against all common sense."

Femke Nijboer

A firmer hook than a personal experience. So that became the title.

What the vaccines have indeed done well can be seen from the first of these Q-graphs by Hans Verwaart. But then you have to look at the other one as well.

A Q-graph works as follows: Two groups are compared, in this case they are Covid deaths of vaccinated people with unvaccinated people. For example, if 4% of the vaccinated have died and 5% of the unvaccinated, the Q is: 4/5 = 0.80. If the percentages are the same, the Q is equal to 1. Below 1 means that relatively fewer vaccinated people have died. Above 1, on the other hand, more vaccinated people have died.

Covid mortality: the vaccines reduced the risk

First the Covid deaths, according to the official figures from UK. All values are below 1: vaccinated people were less at risk of Covid mortality than unvaccinated people.

Unfortunately, we see that this advantage decreases sharply over time. The small advantage of the end of 2022 was very little in absolute terms with the low Omikron mortality.

Those who accept this graph can also see a lot from the following graph. According to the same method, it is shown here how the vaccinated fared in other causes of death, i.e. all deaths except those from Covid.

Mortality from anything other than Covid: the vaccines increased the risk

After June 2021, the values are only above 1, and rising. You could see a stabilization or a slight decline from May 2022. The wish here is perhaps the father of the thought because the Q remains clearly above one for the time being.

Mortality overall: the vaccines increased the risk (and that's not over yet)

All things considered: the ACM, All Cause Mortality of vaccinated people compared to that of the unvaccinated. Rising from May 2021 to May 2022, then more or less stable.

If the vaccination rates are still adjusted, remember that the line as a whole can shift slightly up or down. However, the upward trend will continue.

Ultimately

Based on the data analysed, around 63,000 deaths from Covid-19 have been prevented in the UK. If it had been 100% vaccinated, there would have been more than 68,000.

However, since April 2021, there have been approximately 165,000 more non-covid deaths than expected if no one had been vaccinated.

Thus, makes a negative balance of more than 100,000.

For the smaller Dutch population, all numbers must be divided by 3.78. Because of our lower vaccination rate, at least another 10% will have to be removed. Then those 100,000 will become about 24,000. That's significantly more than cbs has labeled deaths as "covid." Even if the vaccination rates in England are still somewhat corrected. Or there really shouldn't be a ball, that's a new problem.

This without converting to QALYs. The average age of covid deaths will be higher than non-covid. The number of years of life lost can be turned upside down a number of times. Calculations are not possible because the data is withheld by the policymakers.

Final Verdict

Virusvaria assesses Femke Nijboer's statement "Not wanting vaccination goes against all common sense." FALSE AND UNSCIENTIFIC. Because of the social implications, we add the predicate there DANGEROUS to.

Virusvaria assesses the statement "You can say what you want about those vaccines, but they have done a lot of good!" as FALSE AND UNSCIENTIFIC. Such a conclusion deserves a thorough consideration between advantages and disadvantages.

In the academic world, people apparently only listen to what they say to each other and consider it to be scientific because of an academic level. This is how trust degenerates into credulity. One believes.

By age group

The Prof. Dr. also explained to me that SARS-COV-2 is the same virus as SARS. Of course, that is not true, they are 80% the same as so many coronaviruses, but they differ in important points. In addition, didn't virologists always talk about a 'novel' virus they didn't know about...? Why would they have pretended that they didn't know the virus at all?