Two recent analyses from Substacker Igor Chudov, who made it onto the Highwire recently…
I’m only showing the main details and outcomes.
In the first analysis Chudov compared South Africa and Portugal. Here was his rationale:
" Let’s explore. South Africa and Portugal are on the opposite sides of the vaccination spectrum : South Africa is barely vaccinated, while in Portugal, reportedly, “there is no one left to vaccinate” (read that story, it is something)."
5/6/22 Ba.5 is a “Variant for Boosted People”
South Africa vs. Portugal: Same Variant, Opposite Outcomes
Over to Chudov: his conclusions were:
So,
Both countries are experiencing a “BA4/5” wave
It was no big deal for South Africa
The same wave is deadly for the overboosted Portuguese and the deaths keep rising
Covid looks to be “mostly over” for unvaccinated South Africa and is “only getting started” for totally vaccinated and mostly boosted Portugal.
While no two countries are alike, this is a very alarming finding. Mind you, just about everyone in Portugal had Covid by the end of last winter. Thus, this current wave of infections and deaths in Portugal is driven by reinfections.
‘Boosted’ by this surprising outcome, Chudov went and got more data. In the second analysis, he analysed the European countries for which good booster data are available.
24/7/22 Boosters now PRMOTE covid deaths in Europe
The countries he analysed are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom.
Note that this analysis is only about the effect on COVID DEATHS, not any vaccine side effects…
He analyses 3 periods:
Jan 1 - Mar 31 (three months). Result: Significant protection from boosters (p=0.004).
Mar 1-May 30 (three months). Result: No sigt protection, though marginal drop (p=0.68)
Jun 1 - Jul 23 (almost two months). Result: Significant association with death. (p=0.004)
(These are regression analyses)
He then discusses the results. He puts the reversal of booster effects down to things like re-infections and immune tolerance.
It goes without saying this is a big data set.
I noted somewhere that it looks likely from basic world data that countries that went big on vaccination are finding themelves higher on recent covid deaths.
ED