Weather It Is (Don't Mislead)

 Good Morning:

Much cooler air is moving in to our area today.  There will be some clouds and sprinkles.  However, heavy rain is not expected, even though temperatures will be the coolest of the season. 

The cool weather should remain with us for about a week's time.  The Global Ensemble Forecast System's predictions for the last week in October suggest that seasonal weather with a chance of showers will be on tap for us.  However, there is also about a 25% chance we'll end on a much warmer note.

Otherwise...

Where Numbers Lie

 The Israeli People`s Committee website and reports give the appearance of authority. They’ve composed the Report of Adverse Events Related to the Corona Vaccine, May 2021 and conclude that: “Never has a vaccine injured so many.”

In my opinion: this document misleads, and has the potential to cause harm to those who take its conclusions at face-value.

According to the authors’ assessment, “it is possible to estimate that the number of deaths in Israel, which have occurred in proximity after the vaccination… at about 1600-1700 people.” Furthermore, based on direct reports to their website, they composed a table that displays both deaths and other serious or non-lethal side effects attributed to the Coronavirus vaccine.

 They write that “We found a statistically significant correlation between the daily mortality data and the daily vaccine data during January-March 2021.”  However, they do not note, even once, that the mortality occurred within the context of the Pandemic (0/0 citations within).

 

Their “2016 additional reports refer to a wide and multi-system range of adverse events that occurred in proximity after vaccination [detailed in Table 6]”, without the context of how many so-called adverse events would occur due to other causes.

 In fact, by composing a table (below) for comparison based on United States data of Coronavirus-19 related cases, versus number of Coronavirus related deaths, and presenting those numbers against those of the committee, one can conclude that the vaccine appears eminently safe (besides being effective). For instance, based on data from “Statista,” the mortality rate in all ages from the virus is much higher than from The Israeli People’s Committee.   Based on the United States Social Security Adminstration’s Actuarial Table from 2019, the risk of death in any10 year period from natural (or other causes) is much, much higher than the risk of death from the Vaccine.  This means that to attribute all reported deaths due to the vaccine in any 10-day period ignores all other reasons for dying, which are (unfortunately) much more prevalent.

Moreover, even if we accept that the administration of 15+ million doses was associated with 1650 deaths, this is far lower than the almost 8000 deaths due to the virus. In fact, if one were to normalize the populations that have received one dose (6.2 million have received at least one dose while 1.3 million have been so-far infected), then (all else equal), Israel would be facing almost 40,000 deaths without the vaccine. 

 I conclude: never has a published document been so misleading or potentially dangerous for those who refrain from being vaccinated because of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 1: Comparison of Mortality Rates from Covid-19 versus The Israel People’s Committee estimate of deaths from the vaccine.  The number, for example of 1:10,000 means that 1 out of 10,000 people in that age group die from the disease.  

Age Bracket	US Cases	US Reported Deaths	US Calculated Mortality Rates	The Israeli People’s Committee1	Risk of Death by Age (X3) Actuarial Life TableActuarial Life Table
0-17	5,199 ,905	513	1:10,000	X	1:83 (20)
18-29	7,742,370	3888	1: 1,991	1:18,000	1:69 (30)
30-39	5,841,598	11,313	1:516	1:18,000	1:47 (40)
40-49	5,121,409	28,190	1:181	1:18,000	1:30 (50)
50-64	6,787,683	125,812	1:54	1:5000	1:14 (60)
65-74	2,513, 548	160,596	1:16	1:30002	1:7 (70)
75-84	1,274,874	187,611	1:7	1:1100	1:4 (80)
Ø  85	964,714	195,007	1:5	1:1000	1:1.58 (90)

¹The Israeli People’s Committee estimated Death Rate from the Coronavirus Vaccine

²Average of row values directly above and below.

³For the year 2019: Calculate the number who die each decade from the table.  Divide this number by the number who were alive at the start of decade.  Divide 1 by this fraction to get the Risk of Death by Age (or the number who will die per value given).