Are the covid vaccines really doing any good? (Spoiler: yes they are)

I recently saw it reported that out of all the UK people who have died (so far) from the Indian (delta) covid variant, a third were double-vaccinated. The article was from The Sun: it's not something I usually read (because it's trash), but I must admit that when I saw the headline pop up in my news feed thingy on my phone, I was both intrigued and horrified. I clicked it.

I have only had one dose of the vaccine so far, and I have been looking forward to my second jab (scheduled for July), believing that it'd be my ticket to immunity. And the more of us are immune, the more we can start seeing each other again. Hearing that a third of people who've died from the Indian variant in the UK was not what I wanted to hear. If the vaccine programme isn't offering much protection, then it's pretty pointless, I thought... for a few seconds, until I read the sensationalised story and gave it a little more thought.

The Sun is telling the truth, in this instance; this article in The Telegraph reports the very same statistics.

Image source: The Telegraph, 12 June 2021

Although it is sometimes useful to look at the proportions of something, as these pie charts do, it is not always sensible. Yes, a third of people who have died from the delta variant in the UK have been double-jabbed, but exactly how many people are we talking about here? The answer is twelve. Twelve double-jabbed people have died from the delta variant - that's out of 42 people in total who've died from it. This is not a large or worrying number. 

Why? Because no vaccine is 100% effective. 

Around 30 million people in the UK have received two doses of the vaccine. So, out of the 30 million people who have been double-jabbed, just 12 have died from it. It's a tragedy, of course it's a tragedy, but from a statistical point of view, it's insignificant. Twelve deaths out of 30 million is less than 0.5 people per million.

But shouldn't we be concerned that a third of the deaths were in double-jabbed people? That seems like quite a high percentage.

Well, no.

As more and more people get vaccinated, the number of double-jabbed people in the UK is increasing. Suppose we were to reach a point where every single adult had had both doses. This would mean that any deaths from covid - and statistically, we'd expect there to be a few - would be in a person who was double-jabbed. One hundred percent of deaths would be occurring in fully vaccinated people. Although that might sound alarming, it's worth remembering that many people will die from flu each year despite having had the flu vaccine. So long as the raw number of covid deaths is low, the percentage of how many of them had been vaccinated is immaterial.

Of course, we shan't reach a 100% vaccination rate, as some people can't have it, and some people refuse to have it for whatever reason. But the more people have the vaccine, the greater the proportion of all deaths could be among vaccinated people - because they're so populous. 

We still need to be vigilant. We still need to wear masks and keep our distance. And we still need to get vaccinated.

Why did I allow myself to be drawn in by the clickbait sensationalism of The Sun? I don't know. I'm just glad that a few moments' thought enabled me to see the statistics for what they are.

I want the pandemic to be over.