Uh, the fact that the two populations are not comparable. You've not controlled for age, illness, or any other factors that differ between the control and treatment group. As explained, the health of people with breakthrough cases is going to be much lower than the health of people unvaccinated and positive. Therefore, the mortality rates are not comparable. But we can get granular - I'm perfectly fine with that.

The fact that you're comparing two data sets without controlling for other variables makes it non-rigorous. The principle of ceteris paribus is not held, hence it cannot be rigorous.

quote:
The more granular you have to get to show the vaccine is “working.” The less the vaccine is working.

I mean I'm pretty sure I've not needed to get granular. The fact is, hospitalization and mortality rates are lower among the vaccinated population compared with the unvaccinated population. The reason I've not needed to get granular is that the vaccinated population in the UK is older and less healthy than the unvaccinated population. Hence, you'd actually expect mortality rates among the vaccinated to be higher compared with the unvaccinated if vaccines weren't working.

Once you control for age and health, the disparity gets even worse.

Nevertheless, you've still not addressed the claim that the vaccine works to reduce hospitalization by reducing incidence of disease.

And hang on a minute, you just claimed that the vaccine reduces the incidence of disease. Would that not be an example of the vaccine working? Now, I don't think it's the mechanism by which deaths are reduced but it's something you're arguing. This is exactly talking out of both sides of your mouth here.

On the one hand, you claim the vaccine doesn't work. Then, you claim that it works by reducing the incidence of disease. Which is it?

This post was edited on 10/25/21 at 4:49 pm