One of the NET3D writers has been quite skeptical of the COVID 19 vaccines. As he correctly noted a few days ago, “9,245 people in the U. S. who have taken the Wuhan Flu Vaccination have tested positive again. 132 people who took the vaccination have died.” It’s also true that the FDA hasn’t given full approval to any of the vaccines, only provisional emergency authorization for use.
Well, yes, he’s right. But do these facts add up to reason not to be vaccinated? I ran some numbers to find out.
The raw numbers: “As of 6 a.m. EDT April 30, a total of 101,407,318 Americans had been fully vaccinated, or 30.5 percent of the country’s population, according to the CDC’s data. As of 6 a.m. EDT April 29 a total of 143,793,565 Americans had received at least one shot, or 43.3 percent of the country’s population, according to the CDC’s data.” (This from a Google search.)
No vaccine is perfectly effective or perfectly safe. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are close to 95% effective, which is actually really good as vaccines go; but that means that out of every 1 million vaccinated, 50,00 won’t gain immunity. (Of course, 950,000 are protected.) So, with over 100 million vaccinated, we would expect 5 million not to be immune, or to have gained only partially immunity. But only 9,245 have tested positive out of 5 million who are still (unwittingly) vulnerable.
Since we know that most cases – around 80% – are asymptomatic or mild and never detected, it’s a safe assumption that there have been closer to 50,000 cases among the immunized. Only 0.05% (give or take) who got the shot subsequently got Covid 19. That’s 1 out of 2,000. Fewer than 10,000 were sick enough to need treatment. That’s 1 out of 10,000.
Clearly, the vaccines are effective, likely even more effective than advertised.
Which leaves safety. There have been 132 deaths associated with the vaccine; no small thing. Therefore, the death rate among those who have received at least one shot is 0.92 deaths per million. It’s probably impossible to determine which of those deaths were directly caused by the vaccine, which were partially caused, and which were unrelated events, so let’s assume the worst case and attribute them all to the vaccination.
“In 2020, the crude death rate for United States of America was 8.95 deaths per thousand population.” (This also from Google.) That equals 8,950 deaths per million. Therefore the death rate associated with (but not necessarily caused by) Covid 19 vaccination was 1/9,728th of the death rate from all causes.
The case death rate from Covid 19 in the U.S. is a little less than 2%. This isn’t a very good metric, because a very large number of cases are never detected, since, as noted previously, most are asymptomatic or mild. Nonetheless, it’s one of the few measurements that can be estimated with any degree of accuracy. So, we’re going to have to do some educated guessing:
144 million people have received at least 1 shot. Assume that none got it, and also assume that, in line with reputable estimates, about 1/3 have already had Covid 19 and are naturally immune. That leaves about 96 million at risk of catching the disease.
Given that it’s highly infectious, let’s say that 1/3 of them will catch it, or 32 million.
Of those, about 80% will be mild and undetected, therefore the number of “detected cases” will be about 6.4 million.
The case death rate is a little less than 2%; therefore, the number of deaths expected would be somewhat less than 128,000; let’s say 100,000.
Therefore, absent vaccination, out of 144 million people, we could reasonably expect about 100,000 to die. With vaccination, 132 have died. The estimated death rate, absent vaccination, is 75,758% higher than the known death rate with vaccination. Even if we’re off by a factor of 10, you’re still about 76 times more likely to die of Covid 19 than the vaccine.
Safety is not an issue, at least not in the short term.
But we don’t know about the long term yet, and won’t for years. Could that be a problem? Consider that the mRNA technology used in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines has been around for 20 years, and even though it’s never been used successfully in a vaccine before, many, many doses of experimental vaccines have been given with no evident safety issues; instead the problem was lack of efficacy. But if that still seems like a disqualifier, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is based on technology that’s been around for most of a century and is known to be very safe.
Nonetheless, even after taking all possible precautions, there is still a non-zero probability that you can get sick or even die. Yes, and there is a non-zero probability that you could die from being hit by lightning or bitten by a rattlesnake; it’s not impossible, but it’s so unlikely that you don’t worry about it. We make tradeoffs like that every day, thousands of times, and think nothing of it.
So when all is said and done, the vaccines are highly effective and very safe, the risks small and manageable, and – most important of all – the risk from taking the vaccine is far outweighed by the risk of serious illness or death if you catch Covid 19. That’s why I’ve been vaccinated, and so has every member of my immediate family. For us, life has returned to something like normal, and we live with one less fear. And that’s why I hope you’ll put aside your own concerns and get vaccinated, too.
- Kenneth D. Gough © 2021
NET3D 
Larry, whether or not to get the vaccine is your decision and no one else’s.
I consulted with a doctor friend of mine, a man a few year younger than you and of like mind to us politically. He has a specialty practice that has kept him out of the direct line of fire, but he interacts daily with his staff and patients of all ages and demographic groups. His comments:
Consulting an opinion poll is no way to decide on any medical procedure. Instead, follow the data. It seems that the Covid vaccines have a much higher adverse outcome and death rate than the flu vaccine; from what he can glean, about 10 times higher. Even so, that risk is very small, and a tiny, tiny fraction of the risk from the disease. He does not think it should be a consideration for healthy people. However, a few people with rare medical conditions should not get the shot. He and all of his staff were vaccinated early on, and he urges his patients to do it. He also said he didn’t demand that his staff get the shot.
When asked about masking, he scofffed that it was “mask theater”. There is little evidence that masks are very effective for the unvaccinated, and they are useless for the vaccinated, no matter what Dr. Fauci says. But interestingly, he has used an N-95 mask during all his patient visits for the last 3 years, and hasn’t had so much as a sniffle in that time.
Other matters:
He’s convinced the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, probably accidentally.
The vaccines are highly effective, providing full immunity for over 90% and partial immunity for almost everyone else. But those who have had the disease don’t need the shot.
He’s pretty sure that million of cases were actually false positives, especially in the early days. The tests aren’t perfect, and are biased to show positive, that being the safer alternative.
They have been tweaked to be more accurate, but false positives and negatives do still happen.
He thinks the pandemic has been overblown; while many people have died with Covid, few have died of Covid. Most who died were elderly with comorbidities, and would have probably died with flu in a normal year.
So my doctor friend thinks that the data show that the vaccines are safe and effective, and he recommends vaccination for healthy people who don’t have any of the rare, disqualifying conditions. But if people decide not to do it, that’s fine with him. And if I left any other impression in my article, then sincere apologies. Please chalk it up to my less-than-stellar writing skills.
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