Vaccines: protection to zero, budget standard exceeded by a factor of 20

Summary

CBS has announced what proportion of all deaths in the period 2021-2022 were vaccinated, on a weekly basis. These data, combined with mortality with corona, show that more than 8,611 'corona' deaths were prevented in 2021-2022 thanks to the vaccinations.

If we also include the excess mortality figures, we can see when there has been replacement mortality 'with Covid' or actual additional deaths: 'due to Covid'. The majority was replacement mortality. That leaves 2,153 hard corona life savings in those two years.

We estimate the costs of the vaccination campaigns at €2,250,000,000. That is more than 1 million euros per life saved. If this concerns an average of 60-year-olds with 20 years to go, then this approximately corresponds to the QALY standard of €50,000 per year of life saved. If, on the other hand, the average age is 82 years, with an average of two years to go, then it is €500,000 per year of life saved. A factor of 10 more.

If we only look at 2022, a total of 5 million vaccinations have been administered since May, which have prevented 50 deaths. Not to mention the observed negative effects (adverse events). That amounts to five million euros per life saved. Easy calculations: with 5 QALY that is 1 million euros per QALY. That is no less than twenty times as much as agreed in the heath sector. The average age of corona deaths is around life expectancy. That would increase the costs to several million per year of life gained.

This no longer has anything to do with effective care.

Institutes that monitor effective care, optimal spending of the healthcare euro, monitoring the 'quality of care', the House of Representatives, guardians of scientific quality - where were you? I already wrote about it in 2021 in this article .

Below is the article that Herman Steigstra simultaneously posted on LinkedIn .

Vaccination, a cost-effective intervention?

There has been talk for years about the effective use of financial resources to keep healthcare affordable. The question then is whether using a means that would promote our health cost-effective is. But what about the vaccines? Has this been looked into? Is there already talk of it? Kosteneffectiviteit in de zorg, as described 10 years ago by the National Health Care Institute?

On March 5, a congress was held of ZonMw, which mainly described the success of vaccination by means of complicated graphs. This is one of them:

This graph as an example describes "Risk of excess mortality". We don't understand, so we're not going to explain it to him.

We limit ourselves to the basic figures of Statistics Netherlands and from them we extract understandable information. We are interested in what remains at the bottom line and whether vaccination has had a useful effect. Whether someone dies with or without a recent infection, after vaccination with or without vaccination with 1, 2 or 6 injections and whether or not myocarditis, we will leave that for what it is. And finally, we would like to know if we can then "Value for our tax money" have had. We are Dutch and therefore have a standard for this: a QALY (= 1 year of life gained) may cost €50,000 to €80,000.

For the analysis, we again use the useful figures from the CBS report of 23 February 2024. We used these numbers earlier in the article CBS has revealed vaccine efficacy, including the text of this article, also as a Dutch version.

Vaccination coverage

The most important piece of information when calculating the VE is a good estimate of the vaccination rate at any given time. CBS was kind enough to include the total number of deaths that had been vaccinated in their report, which allows us to calculate the vaccination coverage fairly accurately after comparison with the total number of deaths in that week. However, with the caveat that if vaccination were to increase deaths from other causes, the vaccination percentage would be calculated too high. This would then benefit a favorable outcome for the VE (=Vaccination Effectiveness) value.

Mortality rate

What we are going to do next is calculate the mortality probability on the basis of the counts of numbers of deaths from corona for the vaccinated part of the population. If we divide those numbers by the number of residents who had been vaccinated up to the week in question, we know the mortality rate for the vaccinated part of the population that has just been calculated. We also do the same for the unvaccinated part.

In this graph we then see these mortality probabilities for vaccinated people (red) and unvaccinated people (blue).

This graph is directly based on figures from the CBS report. Covid Vaccination Status and Mortality used. It should be noted that CBS has reported every death in which corona possible may have played a role counts as "COVID-19". If we want to consider the ratio between vaccinated and unvaccinated, it doesn't matter, but it does if we want to compare it with total excess mortality.

First, we compare the mortality rates of being vaccinated and unvaccinated. If we first look at mortality at the top of the Delta wave (in December 2021 when the vaccine should have proven its efficacy), we see a difference of only 21%. In other words, without vaccination, mortality from covid would have been 21% higher. A first strong indication that the claims that without vaccination there would have been 140,000 extra deaths and that there was a protection of 95% thanks to the vaccinations, are completely unfounded. When it comes down to it, there is little difference between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.

There are also a number of special features to see. We always see after a vaccination campaign, that there follows a month in which the number of unvaccinated deaths suddenly rises, and that is crazy. Doing nothing with a group increases the number of deaths in that group. A strong indication that the group of unvaccinated people has temporarily increased with recently vaccinated people, who were counted as unvaccinated shortly after death.

In the first weeks of vaccinations, we see a negative health effect: vaccinated people die more often than unvaccinated people. We had seen that before in a previous article. The VE against mortality has been set at -25% for the first 4 weeks after the first injection.

Finally, from May 2022 (Omicron has become dominant), we see that there is virtually no difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. The vaccines no longer provide any protection, but hardly anyone died of covid-19 either. Probably because of the built-up natural immunity and reduced efficacy against new variants.

The VE ends in zero

With the figures for mortality probabilities of vaccinated and unvaccinated, we can calculate the course of the VE over time and then we suddenly see remarkable things:

We see here that in the summer of 2021, the VE protected us for 60% against covid-19, which had virtually disappeared for a while at that time. The excess mortality shown in the graph in that period is non-covid: unexplained. Until March 2021, the protection was still negative, but despite this, excess mortality had already fallen below zero, exactly when the vaccines started to protect us. Our immune system has "won" that competition.

During the summer of 2021, a protection of 60%, but with the arrival of the Delta variant in October, the VE suddenly dropped to almost 20%. That would mean that the vaccine offered hardly any protection against death from Covid, especially at a high prevalence. After the wave reached its peak, the VE briefly rose back to its original value, but with the arrival of the Omicron variant, the VE fell to mostly negative values.

It should be noted that the calculations have a great deal of uncertainty, because the number of deaths from covid-19 at the end of 2022 has become very small and the death of a single unvaccinated person can already cause a 10% increase in the VE. The short increase in VE in the first two months may also have had causes other than protection. Dying from the vaccination prevents death from covid-19 itself and then seems to increase the VE. It seems certain that with the arrival of Omicron, the vaccine has lost its efficacy.

Healthy vaccine bias

In addition to being able to calculate mortality, vaccination and the VE fairly accurately, there is an effect that is difficult to estimate and is referred to by the English term Healthy Vaccinee Bias. This is the phenomenon that healthier people are more likely to be vaccinated than vulnerable people. It occurs, for example, because people got vaccinated in order to regain their freedom. Or not get vaccinated because it no longer made sense for them. As a result, the vaccine appears to offer more protection than it actually does. In this way, a totally ineffective vaccine can still suggest that it is effective. It will certainly play a role in the mRNA vaccines, but it cannot be quantified without thorough research.

Signals of the HVE effect are, for example, health reactions in the group of unvaccinated people after interventions in the treatment group, and improvement of health aspects that are not related to the vaccine. Both were previously proudly presented by RIVM and CBS.

Absolute figures

If we multiply the difference in mortality risk between unvaccinated and vaccinated people by vaccination coverage, we know how many deaths vaccination has saved. This can be seen in this graph, in which we compare the number of deaths with covid-19 with the number of deaths prevented:

The green line is the calculated number of deaths prevented with covid-19, which is calculated at 8611.

It is strange to see that while vaccination seems to prevent people from dying from covid-19, the original decline in the first months of 2021 is stagnating. Excess mortality continued to fall steadily.

Could this have to do with the difference between MET and DOOR corona? In the first quarter of 2021, we counted 8418 deaths with covid-19 as a diagnosis, while the excess mortality was only 3754. That's a difference of more than a factor of 2. In March, there was even a under-mortality of 77, while CBS counted 1861 deaths with covid-19.

We have seen this phenomenon before and saw a factor of 5 difference. We cautiously assume a factor of 4 and correct the number of deaths prevented from 8611 to 2153.

Excess mortality

We can also compare the occurrence of deaths with covid-19 as the cause of death with excess mortality. Let's take a look at this graph:

We see something curious here. Since April 2021, deaths with covid-19 as the cause of death have been prevented, but at the same time excess mortality is rising. From March 2022, when COVID-19 deaths as a possible cause of death are disappearing after the arrival of the Omicron variant, the number of prevented deaths will also drop to zero, but excess mortality will remain. If vaccination would protect against death from corona and we do not see a reduction in deaths with covid-19, was it corona that we have seen?

The difference between the total excess mortality and the excess mortality that we can explain with covid-19 is called the "unexplained excess mortality" and has now risen to around 35,000. We do see a parallel with the vaccination campaigns, but that is not yet seen as scientific evidence that the vaccinations are actually the cause. Alternative causes such as postponed care, administrative causes and "something to do with corona" are less and less seen as drivers of excess mortality.

In order for vaccination to be considered an acceptable means, the prevention of death from covid-19 will therefore have to be greater than the unexplained excess mortality that would be attributable to the vaccinations themselves. In other words, a percentage of 2153/35,000 = 6%. So if less than 6% of the unexplained excess mortality could be attributed to vaccine damage, then vaccination still has a beneficial effect. It is up to the pharmaceutical industry to demonstrate that it is indeed less than 6% and to find a plausible explanation for the remaining 94%. But is it still cost-effective?

The above consideration ignores the ethical issue of whether a doctor, in order to save the lives of corona patients, may take the lives of a smaller number of unsuspecting citizens. Pharmaceutical companies do take this statistical consideration into account.

Dying from vaccination?

Everyone now agrees that there is unexplained excess mortality, but not about the cause. The vaccine appears to be candidate No. 1, but the numbers cannot serve as proof. However, we can calculate what the effect would be on determining the VE. The unexplained excess mortality is around 8% and let's assume that 5% is related to the vaccinations. This means that there is then 5% more mortality from all other causes. And we already saw that we were deducing the vaccination rate from this.

Assuming a vaccination rate of 80%, 5% more mortality results in an increase in the vaccination coverage of 1% calculated from this. This, in turn, results in an increase of the calculated VE value of 5%. This, in turn, is equal to the alleged VE of 5%, which is thus completely erased. In other words, if the excess mortality is caused by vaccination, then there is no longer any protection from the vaccines.

In order to be able to definitively prove this, better vaccination data is needed. We have seen that CBS has these, but they are not yet shared with us.

Cost-effective?

Now it gets interesting, because at least we know what vaccination has given us the maximum: 2153 deaths from covid-19 have been prevented. But what did that cost us? The actual costs are still not clear (why did parliament not ask for this?). The cost per vaccine seems to have been around €15 and later €19.50, the GP costs €15, but little else has been announced. Setting up and maintaining the vaccination sites and the logistics will also have cost money. We include a provisional amount of €50 per vaccination. About 45,000,000 vaccinations have been administered, so that has cost €2,250,000,000. If we are wrong about that, Minister Dijkstra will be willing to correct us. That amounts to more than €1,000,000 per life saved.

The standard for a QALY (= extra year of life in good health or 3 years with average health) is around €50,000 with a fallback upwards in special situations. Corona mainly affects vulnerable people with a short life expectancy, so that €1,000,000 per life saved is in no way proportional to the standards we have set for ourselves.

If we only consider vaccinations in 2022, the result is even more dramatic. An optimistic estimate is that 50 deaths could have been prevented since May 2022, while 5,000,000 vaccinations were administered during that period. That comes down to €5,000,000 per life saved. However, the VE was largely negative in these months, so even that 50 still seems very optimistic.

There was an excess mortality of 8,758 deaths in those months. If even the smallest part of this could be attributed to vaccination, then every shot would have been one too many.

Conclusions

There are some reservations about the exact numbers, but we have to trust that CBS has provided us with the correct figures. From the CBS figures of 23 February, we can immediately calculate that the number of deaths from covid-19 prevented is only a fraction of the excess mortality: around 6%. If we then look at the costs that this has entailed (and that will come back next autumn), an investment of €1,000,000 per preventable death seems inappropriate.

If we want to move towards Kosteneffectiviteit in de zorg, then a critical look at the purchase of costly, non-working vaccines is a prerequisite.

Meanwhile, the protection of the vaccines seems to be nil. We can't find an explanation from these figures, but the fact that the vaccines are tailored to a variant that is no longer there could be the explanation. The built-up natural immunity will undoubtedly also play a crucial role. Because how else is it possible that the unvaccinated are currently at just as little risk of covid-19 as vaccinated people.

It is also remarkable that excess mortality had completely disappeared for a while, just when the vaccines started to protect. Our own immune system is then the only candidate for this successful fight against the pandemic.