How much of the vaccine efficacy reported in COVID research is really a measure of survivorship bias coupled with naturally acquired immunity? This is a critical question. No claim of vaccine efficacy should be made without first addressing this.
Numerous studies conclude COVID vaccines protect people after the second dose, but those conclusions are based on data that excludes data on infection rates in people during the two-week period after vaccination. “Obviously, this is flawed.”
There have been numerous papers published showing how well the vaccines protect people after the second dose. Some of this effect is an illusion. The effect happens as a result of inaccurate measuring and a phenomenon called survivorship bias.
Survivorship bias happens when a group is compared at two time points, but the members of the group change between the time points.
It would be like assessing the quality of a swimming school which favors the technique of throwing people into the middle of the ocean, leaving them for a couple of hours and claiming credit for how well the remaining students can swim.
After two hours, the only people left would be the ones who could already swim and possibly a few who learned to swim the hard way! The poor souls who drowned in the interim don’t even make the count.
Attributing the remaining people’s swimming ability to the coach who turned up 2 hours later would obviously give a very misleading picture. Pointing out that no one drowned in later lessons would be equally misleading in determining the success of the ‘“teaching technique.”
With COVID vaccination there is a two week period after vaccination that is not included in the data. The rationale given for this is that vaccines take a while to induce antibodies and therefore the first two weeks’ data are not relevant.
Obviously, this is flawed.
