123 Billion COVID Infections?
A rumor was started that COVID shots saved “hundreds of millions” of lives, worldwide. But that statement doesn’t pass the “sniff test.” When all of the released data on COVID lethality prior to COVID shots is compared, the “winner” for having the best data is the Technical Briefing Number 5 from the UK:
117,000 persons followed through time for 28-days after testing positive
NOTE: There may be better data which was not released to the public, but UK Tech. Briefing No. 5 beats other published data sets.
Deaths within 28 days of testing positive were presumed to be COVID deaths. Using a correction of the 28-day mortality, in order to bring it up to full mortality, there would be a grand total 190 deaths which had come from those 117,000 persons. Computer software was utilized to find possible infection fatality rates capable of causing that:
About 1600 randomly-generated infection fatality rates (IFR) were compatible with known UK death data. A 99.99% Bayesian Credible Interval was formed around the central-estimated IFR value of 0.163% (1 death per 613 COVID infections). The highest value consistent with UK death data was a COVID IFR of 0.199%.
For perspective, the flu deaths from the 2014/15 season were added in orange, using CDC numbers corrected for an estimated 16% asymptomatics for flu. But if it takes 613 COVID infections to create a COVID death, and if 200 million lives were saved by COVID shots, then that implies that 123 billion COVID infections were prevented.
But there were only ~8 billion people on planet Earth.
In order for the claim of saving 200 million lives to hold true, then it has to be the case that — absent the COVID shots — the average person on planet Earth would have gotten COVID fifteen separate times in the approximate 30 months from rollout time to the time that the pandemic was “declared” over.
That’d require a new COVID infection every two months for those 30 months — or six COVID infections per person per year. But natural protection from COVID after naturally-acquired infection was too high to ever let that happen. When a million infected people in Sweden got COVID, they got 92% protection for at least 9 months:
The fully-adjusted Hazard Ratio (0.08) on the “6-9 months” row shows 92% protection. COVID shots did not ever give anyone 92% protection over the full course of 9 months of follow-up, but natural immunity from natural infection did. Even early CDC data showed just 73% protection after 5 months (after 150 days):
Natural immunity shows that it is a medical impossibility for COVID shots to save 200 million lives.
An Absurd Hypothetical:
Adapted From: The Economist. Estimated Cumulative Excess Deaths during COVID-19, World. https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
Reference
[169 deaths by Day 28 from 117,000 early COVID infections; adjust up by dividing by 0.89] — UK Technical Briefing #5. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/959426/Variant_of_Concern_VOC_202012_01_Technical_Briefing_5.pdf
[“Time-to-death” probability for COVID; using the 95% upper bound of both the mean and the SD of the lognormal model which had fit the actual deaths best] — Linton NM, Kobayashi T, Yang Y, et al. Incubation Period and Other Epidemiological Characteristics of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Infections with Right Truncation: A Statistical Analysis of Publicly Available Case Data. Journal of Clinical Medicine. 2020 Feb;9(2). DOI: 10.3390/jcm9020538. PMID: 32079150; PMCID: PMC7074197. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7074197/
[Past seasons CDC reports of symptomatic flu infections and flu deaths] — https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
[share of flu infections that remain asymptomatic] — Leung NH, Xu C, Ip DK, Cowling BJ. Review Article: The Fraction of Influenza Virus Infections That Are Asymptomatic: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Epidemiology. 2015 Nov;26(6):862-72. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000000340. PMID: 26133025; PMCID: PMC4586318. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4586318/
[COVID infection provides at least 92% natural immunity for a minimum of 9 months post-infection] — Nordström P, Ballin M, Nordström A. Risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection and COVID-19 hospitalisation in individuals with natural and hybrid immunity: a retrospective, total population cohort study in Sweden. Lancet Infect Dis. 2022 Jun;22(6):781-790. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00143-8. Epub 2022 Apr 1. Erratum in: Lancet Infect Dis. 2022 Jun;22(6):e159. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00244-4. PMID: 35366962; PMCID: PMC8971363. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8971363/
[no durable 92% VE from any COVID shot] — Fowlkes A, Gaglani M, Groover K, et al. Effectiveness of COVID-19 Vaccines in Preventing SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Frontline Workers Before and During B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant Predominance — Eight U.S. Locations, December 2020–August 2021. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2021;70:1167-1169. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7034e4
"During December 14, 2020–August 14, 2021, full vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines was 80% effective in preventing RT-PCR–confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection among frontline workers, further affirming the highly protective benefit of full vaccination up to and through the most recent summer U.S. COVID-19 pandemic waves."