Why more vaccinated people are dying of covid in UK than unvaccinated?

News Network
July 16, 2021

London, July 16: More vaccinated people are dying of Covid than unvaccinated people, according to a recent report from Public Health England (PHE). The report shows that 163 of the 257 people (63.4%) who died of the delta variant within 28 days of a positive Covid test between February 1 and June 21, had received at least one dose of the vaccine. At first glance, this may seem alarming, but it is exactly as would be expected.

Here’s a simple thought experiment: imagine everyone is now fully vaccinated with Covid vaccines – which are excellent but can’t save all lives. Some people who get infected with Covid will still die. All of these people will be fully vaccinated – 100%. That doesn’t mean vaccines aren’t effective at reducing death.

The risk of dying from Covid doubles roughly every seven years older a patient is. The 35-year difference between a 35-year-old and a 70-year-old means the risk of death between the two patients has doubled five times – equivalently it has increased by a factor of 32. An unvaccinated 70-year-old might be 32 times more likely to die of Covid than an unvaccinated 35-year-old.

This dramatic variation of the risk profile with age means that even excellent vaccines don’t reduce the risk of death for older people to below the risk for some younger demographics.

PHE data suggests that being double vaccinated reduces the risk of being hospitalised with the now-dominant delta variant by around 96%. Even conservatively assuming the vaccines are no more effective at preventing death than hospitalisation (actually they are likely to be more effective at preventing death) this means the risk of death for double vaccinated people has been cut to less than one-twentieth of the value for unvaccinated people with the same underlying risk profile.

However, the 20-fold decrease in risk afforded by the vaccine isn’t enough to offset the 32-fold increase in underlying risk of death of an 70-year-old over a 35-year-old.

Given the same risk of infection, we would still expect to see more double-vaccinated 70-year-olds die from Covid than unvaccinated 35-year-olds. There are caveats to that simple calculation. The risk of infection is not the same for all age groups. Currently, infections are highest in the youngest and lower in older age groups.

Think of it as ball-bearing rain

One way to imagine the risk is as a rain of differently sized ball bearings falling from the sky, where the ball bearings are the people that get infected with Covid. For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume there are roughly equal numbers of ball bearings in each age group. In each age category, there is also a variation in the size of the balls. The balls representing the older groups are smaller, representing a higher risk of death.

Now imagine there’s a sieve that catches many of the balls. Most people who get Covid will not die (most balls get caught in the sieve). But some of the smaller balls fall through. The older you are, the more likely you are to fall through the holes. The balls that make it through the first sieve are hugely skewed towards older age ranges, represented by the smaller ball bearings. Before Covid vaccines came along, the people that fell through the holes represented the people who would die of Covid. The risk was massively skewed towards older people.

Vaccination provides a second sieve underneath the first, to prevent people from dying. This time, because we haven’t vaccinated everyone, it’s the holes in the sieve that are of different sizes. For older people who’ve had both doses, the holes are smaller, so many ball-bearings are stopped. The vaccines will save many of those who would previously have died.

For younger people the holes in the vaccine sieve are currently bigger as they are less likely to have received both doses and so more likely to fall through the sieve.

If all the filtering were just done by the second sieve (with no skew in risk of death by age, represented by the first sieve), then we might expect younger unvaccinated people to account for a larger proportion of the deaths. But it isn’t. The first sieve is so hugely biased towards older people that even with vaccination, more of them slip through the second sieve than the younger unvaccinated people.

Given the UK’s vaccination strategy (vaccinate older, more vulnerable people first), you would expect high proportions of the people who die from Covid to have been vaccinated. And that is exactly what we see in the data.

The fact that more vaccinated people are dying than unvaccinated people does nothing to undermine vaccine safety or effectiveness. In fact, it’s exactly what we’d expect from the excellent vaccines, which have already saved tens of thousands of lives.

Comments

David Dunning White
 - 
Monday, 4 Apr 2022

What a load of absolute rubbish. These vaccines are neither safe or effective and have not even passed the stage 3 trials. They plainly don't prevent transmission or infection and the claims that they prevent hospitalisation are spurious and unproven and are a last resort at trying to assure the public that they are safe and effective. Beware of these gene therapy jabs unless you want heart problems ,fertility problems and a weakened and useless immune system.

Ramesh Mishra
 - 
Tuesday, 27 Jul 2021

COVID-19, VACCINE DOES NOT GIVE A GUARANTEED LIFE TO ANYONE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD: People of all ages, races, religions and colours follow the health guidelines issued by the authorities. I have studied, worked and travelled the world for over 50, years, I frequently travel around the world and I have noticed that since the declaration of the pandemic, most of the world was in denial and look at Covid-19, as a joke. The people around the world, and economy is unpredictable due to economic catastrophe and massive death caused by the Covid-19. The law-abiding, disciplined and principled countries would recover fast and the lawless countries would be doomed. The fear of Covid-19 now is in the minds of people around the world and people are afraid to breathe the fresh air. It is our faith that would keep us happy, healthy and alive. Covid-19 is curable and the death incurable.
Ramesh Mishra
Victoria, BC, CANADA

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News Network
March 28,2025

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When the ground violently shook beneath his feet, Prem Kishore Mohanty, an Indian expatriate in Bangkok, was attending his five-year-old daughter's school sports day. What began as a routine event—children competing, parents cheering—quickly turned into a moment of panic as tremors struck.

"I felt my head spinning and had to sit down. The overhead lights swayed, and chairs moved," said Mr. Mohanty, 44. The school's PA system quickly announced an emergency evacuation, directing everyone to the outdoor field while warning against using nearby lanes lined with high-rise towers.

Water from rooftop swimming pools, including those at the InterContinental Bangkok, cascaded down buildings, as captured in viral videos.

Fear and Chaos as Bangkok Shakes
The 7.7-magnitude earthquake, with its epicenter in Myanmar, sent powerful tremors into Thailand, bringing Bangkok to an abrupt standstill. Public transport was suspended, traffic snarled, and people evacuated buildings, waiting anxiously for the all-clear.

Earthquakes are rare in Bangkok, a city more accustomed to heat and monsoons than seismic shocks. For the Mohanty family, who live in a high-rise apartment in Sukhumvit, confusion and fear gripped them as the evacuation began.

"It was terrifying. We were told to take the fire escape stairwell and wait outside. There was no time to think," Mr. Mohanty recalled.

Now safe, he remains shaken by the unexpected jolt that turned a normal day into a moment of chaos for his family and thousands across the city.

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News Network
March 20,2025

Bhagalpur: A violent clash between two nephews of Union Minister Nityanand Rai in Bihar’s Bhagalpur resulted in one death and another critically injured on Thursday.

The incident occurred in Jagatpur under Parvatta police station, Navgachia district. The injured nephew is undergoing treatment at Bhagalpur hospital. Following the incident, top district officials rushed to the hospital, and an investigation is underway.

Naugachhia SP Prerna Kumar stated, "Around 7:30 am, we received information that two brothers shot at each other in Jagatpur village. One succumbed to injuries, while the other is critical. Initial reports suggest a dispute over a water tap escalated into gunfire. The deceased has been identified as Vikal Yadav, and the injured as Jaijit Yadav. Prompt action has been taken, and statements are being recorded. We also have information that they are relatives of a Union minister."

According to reports, the altercation between Jagjit Yadav and Vikal Yadav turned violent when one opened fire on the other. The injured man then grabbed the gun and retaliated. Both were taken to Bhagalpur hospital, where Vikal Yadav was declared dead, and Jaijit remains in critical condition.

During the clash, their mother, who tried to intervene, was shot in the hand. She is also receiving treatment at Dr. AK Yadav’s clinic.

Parvatta police station in-charge Shambhu Kumar confirmed that the dispute revolved around water and led to gunfire. Authorities are investigating further to determine the exact cause of the conflict.

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News Network
March 20,2025

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New York: An Indian national enrolled as a postdoctoral fellow in the US has been detained by immigration authorities, said a media report, less than a week after a Columbia student from India self-deported following allegations of activities supporting Hamas.

Badar Khan Suri's lawyer claimed that he is being punished “because of the Palestinian heritage of his wife — who is a US citizen — and because the government suspects that he and his wife oppose US foreign policy toward Israel.”

He is a former student of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

Suri is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

A report in Politico said that Suri, who was studying and teaching on a student visa, has been “detained by federal immigration authorities amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on student activists whom the government accuses of opposing American foreign policy.”

The report said that “masked agents” arrested Suri from outside his home in Virginia Monday night.

A petition filed by his lawyer Hassan Ahmad said that he was taken to a facility in Virginia and is “expected to be transferred soon to a detention centre in Texas.”

The Politico report said that Suri’s lawyer has filed a lawsuit for his immediate release.

“The agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security and told him the government had revoked his visa,” the lawsuit says, according to the Politico report.

The report added that according to Suri’s petition, he was put in “deportation proceedings under the same rarely used provision of immigration law” that the government has invoked to try to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident arrested for his role in leading campus protests at Columbia against Israel. 

The petition says the couple has “long been doxxed and smeared” on anonymously run, far-right websites due to their support for Palestinian rights. The petition adds that Suri’s wife Mapheze Saleh has been alleged to have “ties with Hamas” and once worked for Al Jazeera.

The petition further notes that Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime. Ahmad said he had not been able to contact Suri as of Wednesday evening.

“We’re trying to speak with him. That hasn’t happened yet,” Ahmad said.

“This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil.”

According to his profile on the website of Georgetown University, Suri completed his PhD in Peace & Conflict Studies from Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in 2020. 

He wrote his thesis on Transitional Democracy, Divided Societies and Prospects for Peace: A Study of State Building in Afghanistan and Iraq in which he underlined the complexities involved in introducing democracy in ethnically diverse societies; as well as challenges to project state building.

He has travelled extensively in the conflict zones of India, Pakistan, Balochistan in Iran, Iran, Turkey, Kurdish Areas in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and its southern region, Egypt and Palestine.  

The Politico report quoted a statement from a Georgetown spokesperson as saying that Suri is an "Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention. We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly," the spokesperson said.

Suri's detention comes less than a week after Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student at Columbia University, self-deported after her visa was revoked for allegedly “advocating for violence and terrorism” and involvement in activities supporting Hamas.

Srinivasan had entered the United States on an F-1 student visa as a doctoral student in Urban Planning at Columbia University, the Department of Homeland Security had said.

It added that Srinivasan was “involved in activities supporting” Hamas, a terrorist organisation.

The Department of State had revoked her visa on March 5. The Department of Homeland Security said it has obtained video footage of Srinivasan using the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Home App to self-deport on March 11. 

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