Current Events > Is this study peer-reviewed? Covid study makes bizarre claim

(+) Yeah! (+)

Study basically making the claim that the strategy of mitigating the increase in Covid infection rates through high levels of vaccination is not well-founded based on the data. I just thought it was bizarre because it obviously appears the opposite is true, so I'm curious if this journal is just publishing misinformation or whether this study is peer-reviewed.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/

Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States

Vaccines currently are the primary mitigation strategy to combat COVID-19 around the world. For instance, the narrative related to the ongoing surge of new cases in the United States (US) is argued to be driven by areas with low vaccination rates [1]. A similar narrative also has been observed in countries, such as Germany and the United Kingdom [2]. At the same time, Israel that was hailed for its swift and high rates of vaccination has also seen a substantial resurgence in COVID-19 cases [3]. We investigate the relationship between the percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases across 68 countries and across 2947 counties in the US.

Methods

We used COVID-19 data provided by the Our World in Data for cross-country analysis, available as of September 3, 2021 (Supplementary Table 1) [4]. We included 68 countries that met the following criteria: had second dose vaccine data available; had COVID-19 case data available; had population data available; and the last update of data was within 3 days prior to or on September 3, 2021. For the 7 days preceding September 3, 2021 we computed the COVID-19 cases per 1 million people for each country as well as the percentage of population that is fully vaccinated.
For the county-level analysis in the US, we utilized the White House COVID-19 Team data [5], available as of September 2, 2021 (Supplementary Table 2). We excluded counties that did not report fully vaccinated population percentage data yielding 2947 counties for the analysis. We computed the number and percentages of counties that experienced an increase in COVID-19 cases by levels of the percentage of people fully vaccinated in each county. The percentage increase in COVID-19 cases was calculated based on the difference in cases from the last 7 days and the 7 days preceding them. For example, Los Angeles county in California had 18,171 cases in the last 7 days (August 26 to September 1) and 31,616 cases in the previous 7 days (August 1925), so this county did not experience an increase of cases in our dataset. We provide a dashboard of the metrics used in this analysis that is updated automatically as new data is made available by the White House COVID-19 Team (https://tiny.cc/USDashboard).

Findings

At the country-level, there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days (Fig. 1). In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people. Notably, Israel with over 60% of their population fully vaccinated had the highest COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in the last 7 days. The lack of a meaningful association between percentage population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases is further exemplified, for instance, by comparison of Iceland and Portugal. Both countries have over 75% of their population fully vaccinated and have more COVID-19 cases per 1 million people than countries such as Vietnam and South Africa that have around 10% of their population fully vaccinated.

Across the US counties too, the median new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in the last 7 days is largely similar across the categories of percent population fully vaccinated (Fig. 2). Notably there is also substantial county variation in new COVID-19 cases within categories of percentage population fully vaccinated. There also appears to be no significant signaling of COVID-19 cases decreasing with higher percentages of population fully vaccinated (Fig. 3).

Of the top 5 counties that have the highest percentage of population fully vaccinated (99.984.3%), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies 4 of them as High Transmission counties. Chattahoochee (Georgia), McKinley (New Mexico), and Arecibo (Puerto Rico) counties have above 90% of their population fully vaccinated with all three being classified as High transmission. Conversely, of the 57 counties that have been classified as low transmission counties by the CDC, 26.3% (15) have percentage of population fully vaccinated below 20%.
Since full immunity from the vaccine is believed to take about 2 weeks after the second dose, we conducted sensitivity analyses by using a 1-month lag on the percentage population fully vaccinated for countries and US counties. The above findings of no discernable association between COVID-19 cases and levels of fully vaccinated was also observed when we considered a 1-month lag on the levels of fully vaccinated (Supplementary Figure 1, Supplementary Figure 2).
We should note that the COVID-19 case data is of confirmed cases, which is a function of both supply (e.g., variation in testing capacities or reporting practices) and demand-side (e.g., variation in peoples decision on when to get tested) factors.
Go to:

Interpretation

The sole reliance on vaccination as a primary strategy to mitigate COVID-19 and its adverse consequences needs to be re-examined, especially considering the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant and the likelihood of future variants. Other pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions may need to be put in place alongside increasing vaccination rates. Such course correction, especially with regards to the policy narrative, becomes paramount with emerging scientific evidence on real world effectiveness of the vaccines.
For instance, in a report released from the Ministry of Health in Israel, the effectiveness of 2 doses of the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine against preventing COVID-19 infection was reported to be 39% [6], substantially lower than the trial efficacy of 96% [7]. It is also emerging that immunity derived from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may not be as strong as immunity acquired through recovery from the COVID-19 virus [8]. A substantial decline in immunity from mRNA vaccines 6-months post immunization has also been reported [9]. Even though vaccinations offers protection to individuals against severe hospitalization and death, the CDC reported an increase from 0.01 to 9% and 0 to 15.1% (between January to May 2021) in the rates of hospitalizations and deaths, respectively, amongst the fully vaccinated [10].
In summary, even as efforts should be made to encourage populations to get vaccinated it should be done so with humility and respect. Stigmatizing populations can do more harm than good. Importantly, other non-pharmacological prevention efforts (e.g., the importance of basic public health hygiene with regards to maintaining safe distance or handwashing, promoting better frequent and cheaper forms of testing) needs to be renewed in order to strike the balance of learning to live with COVID-19 in the same manner we continue to live a 100 years later with various seasonal alterations of the 1918 Influenza virus.

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i still think vaccination is better. if it didn't stop infection all-together it would prevent death and possibly impotent weiner (dead cock).
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tbh i think its just more that western countries tend to be more obese and stuff than 3rd world countries

kingdrake2 posted...

i still think vaccination is better. if it didn't stop infection all-together it would prevent death and possibly impotent weiner (dead cock).

They arent saying we shouldnt get vaccinated, just that the data doesnt point to a discernable difference between covid infections and vaccination levels.

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i'd imagine this is related to selection pressure. the fact that a partially vaccinated population applies a pressure on the virus that essentially filters out strains that aren't resistant to the vaccine, in a lot of ways its the same issue you see with the overuse and improper use of antibiotics and the resistant bacteria that have become more and more of an issue.

the only fix is to massively increase vaccination rates and maintain strong protocols (masking/distance/stuff like that) to reduce spread until we hit the tipping point where the virus stops spreading to more people then were originally infected.

the takeaway from this isn't that vaccines dont work, its that vaccine levels withing individual countries mean shit all when half the world doesn't even have access to the vaccine.

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If they were basically just looking at reported vaccination rates and reported cases per country, then it is pretty much worthless.

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I haven't fully read the OP, but I am just posting to reinforce the increasing awareness that the vaccines are starting to show weakness in their ability to limit infection and spread. There are other studies that show waning protection from the vaccine as well, just months after vaccination. These vaccines do not produce sterilizing immunity, so they are not an answer to the pandemic itself. At least, not this generation of vaccines. Hopefully, this technology will improve and we will get better ones, or new therapudic methods will be developed to help manage symptoms and prevent morbidity. As things stand, the vaccines are still useful for a few reasons though:

• They limit severe covid symptoms and morbidity for oneself.
• They also help keep people out of hospital, which protects health care staff and keeps beds open for others in need of them.

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darkzero297 posted...

These vaccines do not produce sterilizing immunity, so they are not an answer to the pandemic itself.

What does sterilizing immunity mean and can we have vaccines that does that?

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No one on this board is qualified to answer

David1988 posted...

What does sterilizing immunity mean and can we have vaccines that does that?

It just means vaccines that protect a person from infection and spread of a particular virus nearly perfectly, if not completely perfectly. As far as I am aware, most vaccines aren't quite that effective. But, it doesn't have to be perfect, just better than the current generation of vaccines are doing.

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David1988 posted...

What does sterilizing immunity mean and can we have vaccines that does that?

Sterilizing immunity basically just means that your immunity to the virus (or presumably the concept applies to bacteria/etc too, not just viruses) is so strong, you can't carry or spread it at all.

My understanding - and I will stress that I am not the most knowledgable on this so anyone who is can feel free to correct me, providing they're doing so from a place of actual medical knowledge and not one of conspiracy - is that the difference is one of degree, not of function. You don't generally get infected by a single virus particle; rather, it takes a high enough quantity of them to start an infection. In turn, the somewhat (but not perfectly) protective effect of the covid vaccine against transmission, arises from that your body fights it off better, less new viral particles are produced, so you put out less viral particles that are able to infect others, reducing the exposure you create for people around you. "Sterilizing immunity" in turn would be a difference not of nature, but merely of degree - that it provides you with immunity so strong, you will never be infectious enough to infect anyone.

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No, the study is completely true.

It's like this board doesnt read world news, which well, isnt surprising.

The vaccine does NOT prevent you from being infected and infecting others. Israel and Singapore, both with incredibly high vacc' rates of over 80%, experienced enormous covid surges regardless.

However, the no. of people suffering from severe effects from the virus did decrease significantly due to the vaccine.

Mackorov posted...

The vaccine does NOT prevent you from being infected and infecting others

I guess I was under the wrong impression that while its obvious vaccines don't with 100% efficacy prevent infection or spread, it would be at least be somewhat effective in minimizing infection rates as more and more of the population gets vaccinated. Guess I bought into vaccine misinformation if this isnt trure.

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David1988 posted...

I guess I was under the wrong impression that while its obvious vaccines don't with 100% efficacy prevent infection or spread, it would be at least be somewhat effective in minimizing infection rates as more and more of the population gets vaccinated. Guess I bought into vaccine misinformation if this isnt trure.

It does. Just take a look at the stats from New Zealand's current outbreak, where - despite vaccination rates being far higher than 4% - only 4% of cases are among vaccinated people (and only 2% of hospitalizations).

And this is a better control too. Many places among the world differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinated in terms of restrictions. Many places with high vaccination rates have moved towards abolishing restrictions altogether, for vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. New Zealand still has pretty strict restrictions in place (they have been relaxed a little bit, for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people) in the areas where we have cases, regardless of vaccination status.

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Trumble posted...

It does. Just take a look at the stats from New Zealand's current outbreak, where - despite vaccination rates being far higher than 4% - only 4% of cases are among vaccinated people (and only 2% of hospitalizations).

And this is a better control too. Many places among the world differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinated in terms of restrictions. Many places with high vaccination rates have moved towards abolishing restrictions altogether, for vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. New Zealand still has pretty strict restrictions in place (they have been relaxed a little bit, for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people) in the areas where we have cases, regardless of vaccination status.

That makes sense but the study I linked uses a similar logic as you do only they seem to use countries like Israel and Singapore to push the opposing view - that high vaccination status havent translated into lower infection rates. Seems like you can cherry pick data to support whatever view you want and thats probably what this study did, which is why I was curious if it was peer reviewed.

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David1988 posted...

That makes sense but the study I linked uses a similar logic as you do only they seem to use countries like Israel and Singapore to push the opposing view - that high vaccination status havent translated into lower infection rates. Seems like you can cherry pick data to support whatever view you want and thats probably what this study did, which is why I was curious if it was peer reviewed.

It feels more to me like not controlling for other factors, in particular the lifting of restrictions and mask mandates. I'd also at a guess suspect vaccinated people are less cautious. Most importantly of all though, what really matters isn't how many people test positive, but how many people end up sick, especially with serious illness. If, for example (and again this is an example, not something I am claiming is the actual effect of current or future vaccines), the vaccine did nothing to prevent infection but prevented all symptoms no matter how mild, a 100% vaccinated population would not even realise the virus existed, even if thousands or even millions of people per day were becoming infected.

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Not sure why anyone would believe TC is posting earnestly.

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Btw, this publication is a high school student's project lol.

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The study is pretty bad, actually. The data they use is cherry picked, and in some cases faulty (the three counties they name as being the highest vaccinated are all from misreported data - the Puerto Rican county was reporting higher than 100% in some databases).

When looking at the county data shown in Fig 3, you can see that more than half of all the counties in each bracket saw an increase in their 7-day rolling new cases over a two week span, with the exception of the highest bracket of counties with 70%+ vaccination rates, which saw less than half of the counties showing an increase. This is significant because there was a large surge starting in August (perhaps due to schools starting up?) so a broad increase in counties would be expected.

It could simply be that vaccine rates are still not high enough to be effective - no vaccine is 100% effective at preventing transmission of disease, which is why a high level of the population must be vaccinated for them to work. The MMR vaccine, for example, needs somewhere around a 95% vaccination rate to prevent mumps outbreaks from happening. Covid isnt as transmissible as mumps, but depending on how effective the vaccines actually are, we still might simply be below the threshold where we can see outbreak prevention.

As other people have also pointed out, while we havent seen significant decreases in the spread of the disease we can easily see that the vaccines do reduce the severity of the illness and the chances of hospitalization or death. The study tries to hide this by pointing out an increase in hospitalization and deaths of vaccinated patients, but it is measuring a period from January to May, which includes the rollout of the vaccines (meaning the data was skewed). The same source referenced by this study also showed a 25-fold reduction in instances of hospitalization and death for those vaccinated.

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"we continue to live a 100 years later with various seasonal alterations of the 1918 Influenza virus."

I didn't know the Spanish flu just became a seasonal alteration

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Mr Hangman posted...

The idea that there's some magic vaccination threshhold you can hit that will make it all go away is unsupported.

Polio?


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didnt they say the vaccines werent even for delta strain but more for the original virus?

Mackorov posted...

No, the study is completely true.

It's like this board doesnt read world news, which well, isnt surprising.

The vaccine does NOT prevent you from being infected and infecting others. Israel and Singapore, both with incredibly high vacc' rates of over 80%, experienced enormous covid surges regardless.

However, the no. of people suffering from severe effects from the virus did decrease significantly due to the vaccine.

The issue is that simply looking at reported infections and reported vaccination rates is worthless. The percentage of unreported covid cases varies from place to place. Age has a pretty large effect on how likely you are to actually get sick.
Not taking into account confounding variables can cause massive issues.

Like awhile back data from Israel was making it seem like the vaccines were not effective against the delta variant. But when broken down by age, the effectiveness was still found to be high.

David1988 posted...

. In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people.

This right here is the sort of thing that makes the results questionable and possibly affected by Simpsons paradox.

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