Vaccinated People Are Dying From Delta Variant, But In Small Nos., Almost All Are Over 50: UK Data

[appalachiablue]

https://www.democraticunderground.com/114225727

X- Post from Health Group.

[mucifer]

1. Well the delta variant is just starting to show up. Deaths lag.

[Hortensis]

51. EXTREMELY small numbers of already small numbers.

Those inclined should be far more afraid of their staircases.

[muriel_volestrangler]

55. 2-3 weeks ago, the Delta variant was already dominant in the new cases

29,892 delta variant cases in the week to 9th June ( https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-variants-genomically-confirmed-case-numbers/variants-distribution-of-case-data-11-june-2021 )

From a total of 41,097 new cases in the week (from https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus )

So the deaths by now would be from cases that are over 50% delta. So 18 deaths/day from about 6,000 cases per day is about 0.3% death rate - indicating the vaccines are helping against death.

[Klaralven]

2. Statistics also reflect use of Astra Zeneca, which is not used in the US

2 doses of these vaccines are highly protective against developing symptoms after catching the Delta variant: 88% for the Pfizer vaccine, and 60% for the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to earlier UK data.

[Fiendish Thingy]

3. Less sensational headline: Over 99.9+% of vaccinated people safe from Delta variant. Nt

[lagomorph777]

5. By my calculation last week, over 99.99% are safe from death, with Pfizer/Moderna.

[LisaL]

7. Well, out of 117 deaths, 50 were fully vaccinated.

So nearly half of those who died were vaccinated.

[lagomorph777]

9. In the USA, out of 150 million vaccinated, there have been a few hundred deaths.

You can invert the logic if you are trying to discourage people from getting vaccinated. You will be contributing to thousands of deaths.

[LisaL]

12. I am not trying to get anyone from getting vaccinated.

I am fully vaccinated myself. But vaccines are not 100 % effective. Although most people are now acting as if vaccines were 100 % effective (even ones who aren't vaccinated).

[Fiendish Thingy]

30. 50 fully vaccinated people died, out of 32.5 million fully vaccinated in UK

So, about 0.000001% of fully vaccinated people in UK have died from a breakthrough infection of the Delta variant.

That is the proper, accurate, non-click bait headline.

[LisaL]

31. Using your logic, 67 people died from delta covid out of

33 million of unvaccinated people.

[Fiendish Thingy]

36. That is a true statement, which could change over time. Nt

[Yavin4]

47. The reason for that is most covid deaths are in the age group 65 and over.

That group has a higher vaccination rate than any other group. So, most of the unvaccinated are under the age of 65. Their death rate will be lower vaccinated or not.

[Mr.Bill]

59. I'm sure many more than that

have died in car accidents, etc.

[Fiendish Thingy]

32. Based on UK data, it is 99.99999% safety for fully vaccinated people

50 fully vaccinated people have died in the UK from breakthrough infections of the Delta variant, out of 32.5 million fully vaccinated people in the UK.

That’s about 0.000001%

[lagomorph777]

34. Strange that some DUers are twisting this into bad news.

Makes you wonder...?

[womanofthehills]

77. Problem is - some who are vaxed believe they can no longer catch the virus

It's not black & white. In my rural town - it's like Covid is a thing of the past - which is worrisome. Two weeks ago 90% of people were wearing masks. This week - 99% not wearing masks. (CDC has said in the past that it's numbers were usually low because many don't report to CDC). Note: for whatever reason, CDC will now only report hospitalized or deceased breakthroughs - not total breakthroughs.

CDC says roughly 4,100 people have been hospitalized or died with Covid breakthrough infections after vaccination

More than 4,100 people have been hospitalized or died with Covid-19 in the U.S. even though they’ve been fully vaccinated, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So far, at least 750 fully vaccinated people have died after contracting Covid, but the CDC noted that 142 of those fatalities were asymptomatic or unrelated to Covid-19, according to data as of Monday that was released Friday. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/25/covid-breakthrough-cases-cdc-says-more-than-4100-people-have-been-hospitalized-or-died-after-vaccination.html

[Yavin4]

48. And the average age of those 50 deaths is probably 75 and over

which means that their immune systems were probably compromised any way because of age.

[uponit7771]

62. +1, even if ALL forms of CV19 was added in seems more likely to win the lottery than to catch

... CV19

[LisaL]

8. Or not sensational enough.

117 people died. 50 were fully vaccinated.
So you can write "Nearly fifty % of dead from delta covid were fully vaccinated."
How about that?

[lagomorph777]

11. Why are you pushing the Trumpist anti-vaxxer agenda?

Are you trying to kill people?

Shame.

[LisaL]

13. I think insisting that vaccinated people are completely safe and can go about their business

as normal (no masks, no social distancing, attending large gatherings and so on) is going to kill people.
Shame.

[Sunsky]

45. I agree

I believe it was a mistake on the part of the CDC. I have never stopped wearing my mask when I go out.

[Blues Heron]

16. She's right - if this variant kills vaxed and non vaxed alike

what happens when its inevitable exponential growth starts to really kick in? It's doubling every two weeks - do the math: in twenty weeks it could be a thousand times worse (2^10=1024)

That's november or thereabouts with this thing killing fifty percent vaxed at a rate 1000 times what it's doing now.

[lagomorph777]

19. Vaccinated people should still be cautious (I am). But it's misleading to imply it's no good...

against the Delta variant. The effect of such distortion will be to reduce vax rates and increase death rates. Please stop.

[LisaL]

20. I am discussing the numbers coming out of UK.

Out of 117 people who died, 50 were fully vaccinated. Per the article. Where is distortion you are accusing me of? I didn't make the numbers up, they are right there in the OP. So please stop yourself.

[lagomorph777]

21. You are omitting the vastly more relevant fact that almost all recipients are protected.

That is a distortion.

[LisaL]

22. I am discussing the numbers in the article.

It's not distortion. Just because you don't like the numbers, it doesn't make them distortion.

[lagomorph777]

24. Bye.

[Yavin4]

49. You're missing the point about the numbers.

First, 117 deaths is small given the population size of the UK. Yes, it's tragic for those people, but on the whole, it's a very small number. About the same number of people died in that apartment collapse in Florida.

Second, the average age of covid deaths is approx. 80 years old. Given that the UK prioritized vaccinating their most vulnerable population first, it's no wonder that the numbers are about even for the unvaccinated vs. the vaccinated. Why? because the unvaccinated are probably in the younger group and their overall death rate is lower.

Finally, we're never going to have a zero covid world. That's simply not even remotely possible. We'll always have some sort of variant that we have to watch for and monitor. In the meantime, we cannot shutdown the world every time there is a new case.

[uponit7771]

65. +1, "Finally, we're never going to have a zero covid world" People are attempting to conflate vaxed

... with 100% inoculated and that's not true.

[Blues Heron]

26. Deaths are fifty percent vaxed

read that again.

[Fiendish Thingy]

35. It's not killing 50% of vaxed, only 0.000001%

50 deaths of fully vaxed people out of 32.5 million fully vaxed in the UK.

You cannot compare the 50 deaths of fully vaccinated people to the other 67 deaths of not fully vaccinated people- it’s apples and oranges. You must compare the fully vaccinated deaths to fully vaccinated people who didn’t die, or even get infected. That number may change over time of course, but it is clearly misinformation to suggest that 50 out 117 deaths means a vaccinated person only has a 50% protection against the Delta variant.

[Blues Heron]

38. read it again - of the deaths it does cause - 50 percent are fully vaxed

now scale that up by a thousand - this thing is doubling every two weeks.

[Fiendish Thingy]

42. That statistic is completely meaningless unless examined in a larger context

Missing data:
How many total new cases in the UK during the time period of these deaths?
What percentage of new cases were delta?
Of the vaccinated people who died, what vaccine did they have? (Majority of vaccines in UK are non-mRNA)

In the coming weeks, we are likely to get a clearer picture of the risks of breakthrough infections in a community with largely non-MRNA vaccines; I still think the large majority (much greater than the current 55% in this sample) of these deaths will be in unvaccinated people, although not as large as in the US, which has a much higher percentage of mRNA vaccinated people.

[Blues Heron]

43. sure - but somehow it managed to kill as many vaxed as nonvaxed

that's a huge red flag on this variant, especially if they're correct about its cases doubling every two weeks even as total cases fall.

[Fiendish Thingy]

46. Without additional data and context, a red flag for vaxxed people is unwarranted.

We have known for some time that the delta variant is a huge risk for unvaccinated people.

I can see health authorities revising recommendations around mask wearing, although it may be tough for the US to overcome RW political pressure in order to do so.

[Blues Heron]

69. WHO said we should keep masking - vaxed or not

The red flag has been raised - ignore it at your peril

[Fiendish Thingy]

70. Im not talking about masks - I'm onboard with masking

I was talking about the alarmist scaremongering about not-yet-understood risks to vaccinated people from the delta variant.

[Blues Heron]

71. I'll go with the experts on this one

I think they're getting a pretty good picture of the risk to vaxxed people - it's not good news, they're effective but not nearly as effective as against the original virus. That's just a fact that you ignore at your peril. When they said delta cases are doubling every two weeks - that's just a fact - they actually count them! again, you ignore that at your peril.

[Fiendish Thingy]

73. I follow the experts as well (married to one, a retired CLS), and no one's hair is on fire yet

If things were as dire as some have implied on this thread, wouldn’t Fauci, Walenski, and all the other scientists we’ve trusted and accepted sound scientific advise from this entire pandemic, wouldn’t they be calling for another lockdown? Or have they all become political pawns?

The delta variant is of course worthy of concern and should be monitored closely- I’m not suggesting otherwise. As scientists’ understanding becomes clearer, I expect we will get clear recommendations on the level of risk and protective measures to take.

I’m only suggesting that not enough is known yet for people to start crying “Wolf!” Just yet. False alarms can lead to real alarms being ignored- that’s why I think Fauci et al have held off on raising “red flags” at this point.

[Blues Heron]

74. You dismiss the Delta variant at your peril

The idea that a year and a half into this crisis, that concern over an obviously dangerous new variant is "hair on fire" "Crying wolf" etc etc is frankly ludicrous.

[Fiendish Thingy]

75. Like the OP, you are thinking in black and white extremes

I am not dismissing the delta variant- like the experts, I am monitoring the developing scientific knowledge closely.

[Blues Heron]

76. OK Be safe

[uponit7771]

64. Variant will kill vaxed at lottery winning chances than non vaxed, PCR is not similar or same

[Blues Heron]

68. right, it's more if you DO get it your vax gives the same chances as nonvaxed

that's why fifty percent of its fatalities are vaxed.

That's a "rubber meet road" kind of statistic that you ignore at your peril, considering this variant is rising while the total numbers are falling. This thing is on the rise exponentially, doubling every two weeks.

[Ms. Toad]

23. Except that is blatantly false.

At best, 95% of vaccinated people are safe from the Delta variant - AND - the early data suggests it is closer to 88%.

Of those, somewhere around 2% will die - but there will be a larger chunk of those who have serious illnesses (short of death), and the rest will have mild to asymptomatic illnesses.

So while it is less sensational, you have conflated "not dead" with "safe." They are not synonymous.

[Fiendish Thingy]

29. Nope. The number of breakthrough infections resulting in death is infinitesimally small

In the thousandth of a per cent of vaccinated people.

[LisaL]

33. Oh for crying out loud.

The numbers of dead from delta are nearly the same for un-vaxxed and vaxxed.
50 vs 67.
So their total number of deaths from delta was very small, regardless of vax status.

[Ms. Toad]

37. Again. You are conflating "safe" with "not dead."

You asserted that "Over 99.9+% of vaccinated people safe from Delta variant"

Not to mention that you don't understand (or are deliberately misrepresenting) what the numbers you are quoting represent: A snapshot in time of how many had contracted it- not a precition of how many will. That snapshot is limited to:

- A collection of people who had been vaccinated for varying lengths of time
- A very short period of potential exposure (a few months at most)
- Mitigation measures (masks, social distancing)

What you are saying is the logical equivalent of declaring, in March 2020, that Americans were perfectly safe because in the snapshot taken on that date only a handful of people had actually contracted COVID.

Exposure to more unmasked people will increase the number of vaccinated people who contract COVID and die from it.
Exposure over a longer period of time will increase the number of vaccinated people who contract COVID and die from it.

As time goes on and mitigation measures decline, the illness and death toll will go up - because both duration of exposure and decrease of mitigation measures bump up the number of exposures that would cause COVID in an unvaccinated person - and 5% of those (or more for the Delta variant, or for those with the J&J vaccine). That's what vaccine effectivenes measures: Of 100 exposures that would cause COVID in an unvaccinated person, 5 will cause COVID in an mRNA vaccinated person; 12 if the variant is the Delta variant; 25 if the vaccine was J&J)

[Fiendish Thingy]

39. And what this OP headline ignores is that same measure of vaccine effectiveness

Claiming that the fact that “50% of all Delta deaths were in vaccinated people” has any meaning without examining the greater context is pure misinformation

[Ms. Toad]

57. No. That headline is ALSO misleading

for the same reasons the infinitesimally small headlines are:

It ignores the vaccinated/unvaccinated mix: In a population with 95.24% vaccinated and 4.76 unvaccinated, that is exactly what we would expect - 50% of those dead are vaccinated.

If the mRNA vaccines are only 88% effective, we would expect that result in a population with 89.29% vaccinated and 10.741% unvaccinated.

If the vaccine in question is the J&J vaccine, we would expect that result in a population with 80.65% vaccinated and 19.35% unvaccinated (likely a closer to even ratio - given that J&J is probably less than 75% effective against the Delta variant).

So 50% of people who died were vaccinted is as meaningless as your thousandth of a percent breakthrough snapshot.

Neither provides enough of the background information to be determine what the actual risk is.

[BannonsLiver]

41. +1

[beaglelover]

58. THANK YOU!!!! So sick of the COVID fear porn on DU!

[uponit7771]

60. +1

[Ms. Toad]

4. Sounds just like what they said when COVID started out.

Not many deaths. Only old (expendable) people.

Until they stopped being old (expendable) people and we started realizing things we have long since forgotten: small numbers build - AND - death is not the only serious consequence of this blasted disease.

[Hugin]

6. Yeah, sometimes it is the things that remain unsaid and understood which are the key...

parts of the message.

[Fiendish Thingy]

40. Except at the beginning of COVID, NOBODY was vaccinated. Nt

[Ms. Toad]

52. So it's OK not to just dump vaccinated granny on an ice flow

because she's old and expendable?

And those vaccinated long-haulers, or children with MIS-C, or others with permanent heart or lung damage don't matter since they aren't dead?

That's the message circulating in the beginning about COVID that is being recycled now to justify ignoring that vaccination really isn't magic armor against COVID. It is a good solid layer of protection, but here are holes we need to fll by other mitgation measures.

Suggesting it is only the old and infirm vaccinated (or only death we should worry about) is pablum to sooth the real and growing concern that the Delta virus poses more threat than expected - the same rationale that was used to lull people into a false sense of security back in March 2020 (it's not going to impact me - only expendable people), to lull people into thnking kids should go back to school without masks, to justfy COVID parties among young adults, etc.

[Fiendish Thingy]

54. To quote our current president- Look, here's the deal:

The OP highlighted out of context stats in a manner designed to trigger fear and anxiety, rather than truly inform.

I said nor implied nothing about certain populations being expendable.

If anyone is honestly interested in getting informed, rather than misinformed, about the delta variant and breakthrough infection among vaccinated persons, they can read these accurate, balanced articles, which acknowledge the known risks, but also acknowledge the incompleteness of current data, and are not motivated, like this OP, to create fear and misinformation, or like the previous administration, to create a false sense of security.

Atlantic: Why No One Is Sure If Delta Is Deadlier

https://apple.news/AFNhZuV2BQLmp5e1MPHivCA

CBC: Yes, Some People Get COVID After Being Vaccinated. But In Canada, They’re Only 0.5% of the Cases

https://apple.news/AB05iEJFDSdKaKWg3bYP9dQ

[Ms. Toad]

56. My comment pertained to the OP - which certainly did imply that

by making the same kinds of statements made at the beginning of COVID.

The Canada statistic is misleadng.

.5% of the cases is absolutely meaningless, without the context of the mix of the population that is vaccinated, measured at each time data is collected.

In other words - the vaccinated population has varied from 0% to 75%. The infection rate was highest at the time vaccinations began (when the fewest individuals were vaccinated - and virtually all cases would have been in unvaccinated people because nearly everyone was unvaccinated). The article doesn't provide the underlying data - but the percentage of infections has likely been growing over time as the vaccinated population grew, and will likely settle out over time, adjustred for vaccinated/unvaccinated mix of population , at around 5% (the effectiveness of the vaccine)

The assertions being made regarding the risk of COVID-19 really point out how poorly people understand high-school level mathematics. Snapshots in time are being represented as a measure of risk of infection; data gathered in populations that are mixed as to vaccinatrion rates are being touted as applicable to populations in which the vaccination mix is very different, etc.

[zanana1]

10. "Almost all are over 50"

So it's no big deal, right? Ageism showing its ugly head.

[LisaL]

14. From this data, it appears that older and sickly ones are still at risk after vaccination.

Better than before vaccination, but not risk free.
But yet here in US we are telling people that everything is back to normal.

[appalachiablue]

17. Check that, and "over 50..very elderly"

So over 50 is 'very elderly,' lol.

'109 of the cases were in those over the age of 50. UK officials did not give a more detailed age breakdown, but coronavirus deaths disproportionately affect the very elderly.'

Does that mean of the 109, people in their 50s numbered 10, and 99 people were 80+. The info. isn't specified.

[SheltieLover]

15. K&R!

[ananda]

18. Although Pfizer and Moderna afford stronger protection...

it's still only a matter of time before vaxxed people here
start contracting the virus.

Safety protocols are still warranted.

[LisaL]

25. We are being told that in the US, vast majority of people who died were un-vaccinated.

These numbers out of UK don't show that-is it because of delta variant being widespread there? Or UK is medically treating people better than US?
I would really like to see stats for US.

[ProfessorGAC]

27. Differing Vaccine Regimes Matter

Roughly 11 out of 12 vaxxed people here were mRNA.
It's closer to 20% in the UK.
It has been known for a while that the AZ vaccine is less efficacious than the mRNA types used here.
Good, but not as good.
Not sure it's reasonable to apply UK numbers to the U.S..

[LisaL]

28. One can hope we should be better off due to mRNA vaccines here.

Once delta starts to spread (which is happening now).

[ProfessorGAC]

50. As Of June 16, US Was At 10% Of Cases

Likely higher now, but I couldn't find a more recent estimate.
Still, the mRNA vaccines are still showing >90% efficacy for Delta. Not as good as the other variants, but still reason for some optimism.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

44. I am fully vaccinated but will be wearing a mask

[LiberalFighter]

53. What were their underlying health conditions?

[uponit7771]

61. all over 50 looks like

[LiberalFighter]

72. That by itself doesn't identify it.

[uponit7771]

63. Looks like I got *CLOSER* chances of hitting lottery than getting CV19 of any variant after vax

[mainer]

66. I was booked for a trip to UK in Sept

I just cancelled it.

[appalachiablue]

67. Wait a while, spare the stress. Enjoy

Britain in a year or two. I loved it there, studied in England for a semester.

See the Red area- that's the UK now. (Map from *June 23, 2021).