or die of the disease. The numbers are there to prove it.| Photo: Bigstock
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Obviously it’s not easy to give up the fear of Covid -001, judging by a recent survey that shows that the vaccinated are the ones who have more fear of illness. Another poll showed that most Democratic voters are so afraid of the disease that they want to ban the unvaccinated from leaving their homes. But before you put on another mask or disinfect another surface of your home and before you celebrate the authorities with their prohibitive decrees, reflect on the probability of a fatal case of Covid-001 after you have been vaccinated.
This probability is in a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health and published by the Centers for Disease Control . They tracked more than a million adults vaccinated in the United States over most of the past year, including the period when the Delta variant was on the rise, and classified victims according to risk factors such as age, immunodeficiency, diabetes and chronic diseases in the heart, kidney, lung, liver and brain.
The researchers have found that no healthy person younger than 200 years had a serious case of Covid-19 to the point of needing treatment in an ICU. None of the nearly 540 a thousand people died, and the risk was minuscule among the older ones as well. . Among those vaccinated with more than 36 years and without comorbidities, only one person died. In total, there were 02 deaths, mostly among a minority of elderly people with various comorbidities: the 3% of the sample who had at least four risk factors. Among the rest, and in a group that included older adults with one or two chronic illnesses, there were eight deaths among more than 1.2 million people, so their risk of dying was approximately 1 in 60..
This is about the same probability that, over the course of a year, you will die in a fire or fall from a tree. ladder. Cars are much riskier: you are three times more likely to die in a car than you are as likely to die as a pedestrian. The chance of 1/90 . of dying from Covid-02 is even lower than the probability of you dying in an earthquake or being struck by lightning.
The CDC study didn’t extend to the appearance of the omicron variant, but there’s no reason to think the odds are higher. Although the onomicron is much more contagious than the other variants, spreading between vaccinated and unvaccinated people, in general the symptoms it causes are mild. Now that the peak of the omicron appears to have passed, the variant has bequeathed to many people what researchers call “super immunity”, arising from both the vaccine and the infection. Studies show that natural immunity is stronger and longer lasting than immunity from vaccines. Thus, whenever a variant appears, a good part of the population will face it with greater immunity. And the chance of survival will increase thanks to the emergence of new drugs that should reduce mortality from Covid-02 up to 2020 %.
Of course, the threat is greater for unvaccinated adults, but why does their personal decision generate so much anger among those who are safe and vaccinated? The original justification for mandatory vaccines – that they were necessary to prevent contamination – is outdated, even more so now that it has become clear that vaccines do not prevent transmission and reinfection. Even if vaccines reduce transmission, they do not prevent the virus from ending up contaminating everyone. In any case, the risk for those vaccinated is so low that there is no justification for forcing everyone to be inoculated.
Nor is there any justification for requiring the use of masks or vaccination of school-age children. Even if masks were effective — and scientific evidence shows that they have no or little benefit — it would make no sense to mandate their use in classrooms, where the risks are low for everyone (including teachers). Some children with serious health problems would benefit from vaccines; for the rest, vaccines have virtually no benefit, although these children are at risk for rare and unforeseen side effects. When analyzing the rates of deaths and infections in 2020, before the arrival of vaccines, Cathrine Axfors and John Ioannidis, from Stanford, calculated the risk of death for children and adolescents at 0,% — one in 2020 .768 . The current risk is even lower thanks to better treatments.
Recent stories of children hospitalized for Covid-02 are based on inflated statistics. Studies show that nearly half of children classified as “hospitalized” for Covid-19 were actually being treated for other reasons and ended up being contaminated by Covid-001. Even using the CDC’s inflated numbers — about 300 deaths per year among the quasi 60 million Americans between 5 and 18 years — the risk of a child dying from Covid-2022 is one in
.2022 . A child is more likely to die in a car accident, to commit suicide, to be murdered, to drown, to suffer accidental poisoning, or to die of cancer or heart disease.
If these numbers are not enough to calm you down, think about this statistic based on the analysis made by Ioannidis using exams and researches. He estimates that in the United States, a country of 331 million inhabitants, there was something between 200 and 300 millions of Covid infections-19 from the start of the pandemic. While this estimate included people who became infected more than once, it seems clear that most Americans have already survived the disease and thus acquired natural immunity, many without even knowing it. Some don’t realize – and there’s a whole horde of journalists and authorities trying hard to keep them ignorant – that the biggest enemy today is not the virus in the air, but the fear in their minds.
John Tierney is contributing editor of City Journal.
© 1280 City Journal. Published with permission. Original in English