Accurate figures for vaccination rates are essential for conclusions regarding the effectiveness of the vaccines. Only by choosing the right value for this can correct conclusions be drawn. At the end of this article we can only draw one conclusion: the vaccines have no longer offered any protection since at least mid-2022. Unless the choice fell on vaccines as the elixir of life... An article by Herman Steigstra in collaboration with Anton Theunissen.
Statistics Netherlands figures
The additional figures in the CBS publication of 23 February turn out to be a goldmine of information. We've written about this before. It was demonstrable that the Negative effectiveness in the first 4 weeks and the Loss of protection since the 2022 booster.
It is now known that 7% of vaccinated people have not registered in the CIMS registration system, which is crucial in determining the correct effectiveness of the vaccine. These deaths were< counted as unvaccinated in this way, which leads to an overestimation of the efficacy of the vaccines: more unvaccinated people seemed to have died than expected. Especially because the group of unvaccinated people is very small compared to the vaccinated, this adds up heavily.
Hans Verwaart published an article about this on his substack with the telling title: It's all about that 7%. He exposes the crucial role that vaccination coverage plays in calculating the VE value. Hans even goes so far as to use a model that divides 7% among different age groups, an obvious assumption. Younger people will be more critical of their privacy than older people. But the crucial question remains what the right vaccination coverage is for each age group.
Vaccination coverage
In the meantime, a little more insight has been gained. That 7% seems to apply mainly up to the time of the booster vaccination. Vaccination of large numbers ended in April 2022. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) writes about this in its Report dated June 26, 2022:
Some of the vaccinated people also do not have the registration of the basic series, but the booster vaccination is registered in CIMS.
CBS Report dated June 26, 2022
So from May 2022 we can forget about that 7% again. We're going to do the math. Assuming that vaccination will hardly affect the mortality pattern, the mortality rate of vaccinated people will be equal to the vaccination coverage for all deaths. This percentage can be calculated from the CBS report in question (see CBS has revealed vaccine efficacy) and we then get this graph:
We compare this reconstructed vaccination coverage (black) with the figures published by the RIVM (blue). This line is the weighted average of vaccination coverage across 5 age cohorts. Here we see the administrative backlog as a difference between the blue and black lines. It will not be until May 2022 that the lines will come together and the backlog seems to have been caught up.
As of December 2021, the vaccination rate (the blue line) is constant and averages 89%. Based on the ratio of vaccinated and total mortality (the black line), we arrive at 88.8%, but a small difference! Ruben van Galen holds back his Tweet at 87%. It's close together. We'll stick to that 89% for now.
So we can clearly see here that until May 2022, the CBS administration did not keep pace with the actual vaccination coverage. Due to the lack of vaccination status, a very significant proportion of vaccinated deaths were wrongly attributed to the unvaccinated.
The elixir of life effect
The lack of registration in the CIMS database has far-reaching consequences. RIVM draws a special conclusion based on these figures. In their report COVID-19 vaccination and mortality in 2022 the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) writes that vaccination also reduces the risk of mortality, regardless of the cause of death, by up to a factor of 3. This is curious, because total mortality in 2022 is almost 10% higher than normal. This can only mean that, in the eyes of the RIVM, the chance for unvaccinated people to die from, for example, cancer has tripled since the arrival of the vaccines.
The results of this research were presented by Susan van den Hof at the ZonMw conference of 5 March 2019 Despite critical words from the audience, the RIVM stuck to the elixir effect of the vaccines. Very special for an organization that also represents science.
The impact of vaccination coverage
So we assume the vaccination rate of 89%. We must realize that the "Healthy Vaccinee Effect" (HVE) also plays a role in this. That is the effect that healthy people are more likely to get vaccinated than unhealthy people. As a result, the group of unvaccinated people contains more sick and vulnerable people with a greater risk of death. The lower risk of death of vaccinated people can then easily be seen as an effect of the vaccinations. Small differences of one percent in vaccination coverage or HVE already give a difference of 10% in the mortality rate. We will come back to that later.
We are the first to see that during the summer, excess mortality among vaccinated people is almost the same as among unvaccinated people and follows the same pattern. During the (almost) heat wave, both groups die equally. We also see that mortality from covid-19 follows the same pattern, both vaccinated and unvaccinated: vaccination makes no difference here. Fewer vaccinated people are dying (the red dashed line), but the question is whether they will instead die of, for example, classic pneumonia. In other words, don't we just look at deaths with corona ("Old man's friend")?
From the end of September, when the new round of vaccinations starts, we see that the green and red lines will diverge. There is 10% more mortality among vaccinated people than among unvaccinated people. So it seems very likely that the vaccine has played a role here when it comes to excess mortality. During the vaccination period, we already see more deaths, but when flu emerges at the end of December, we initially only see it in the deaths among the vaccinated.
Unfortunately, the death figures in the CBS report only go up to the end of 2022 and we would of course like to see the continuation of this flu epidemic. The epidemiologists explain that the vaccination has undermined the immune system and is therefore more susceptible to infections such as influenza.
Actual vaccination coverage
Hans Verwaart has already shown that (the distribution of) vaccination coverage across the population is crucial. It plays a dominant role in calculating the VE. A 1% difference in vaccination coverage already makes a big difference. For example, we read that CBS later adjusted the vaccination figures on the basis of the current population composition instead of that on 1 January 2020. With a population growth rate of 0.5% per year, that in itself makes more than a percent difference. Then there is the Healthy Vaccine Effect (HVE), which means that healthier people are vaccinated more often than the vulnerable. You got vaccinated to be allowed to go on holiday, or to sing along with your singing club, healthy people. In addition, there is still the question of whether the CIMS has well 100% of vaccinations have been recorded. Much remains unclear.
If we take a very cautious view of these effects at only 1%, the graph immediately changes dramatically:
Now, all of a sudden, we see that excess mortality among the unvaccinated is turning into under-mortality. It is now the vaccinated who are fully responsible for the unexplained excess mortality we are seeing.
But we choose this conclusion ourselves, by assuming that 88% is the correct vaccination rate. We could also have chosen to assume 90% as the vaccination rate. Then the unexplained excess mortality would largely be borne by the unvaccinated. That is also a choice, to see the vaccine as an elixir of life. Small differences in assumption, contradictory conclusions.
Whatever choice we make, the vaccination effect from mid-September onwards can continue to be seen as an increase in the mortality rate of those who have been boosted compared to those who have not taken the booster. The aim of the booster round in September was to improve resistance to SARS-Cov-2, but even that is not visible: it did not reduce the risk of dying from covid-19.
Conclusion
The choice of which vaccination coverage to use determines the calculated value of the VE and thus the success or failure of the vaccines. If we opt for 89%, then we did not benefit from the vaccinations in the summer of 2022. Since vaccination in September 2022, we have even seen a negative effect.
If we opt for 88% (so we assume that HVE and incomplete administration also play a role), then the unexplained excess mortality of 10% is entirely attributable to the vaccinated.
If we opt for a vaccination rate of 90%, then vaccination seems to be a kind of elixir of life: it lowers your chance of dying from any cause: also a choice.
If we choose a realistic vaccination rate, i.e. one that does not seem to work as an elixir of life, then we have only seen negative effects of the vaccinations since 2022.
It is distressing that choices that are made determine the outcome of the protection. The image of "Science" is thus reduced to an instrument where politics seems to determine the outcome behind the scenes: elixir of life or harmful to our health.
