Evaluating claim in "peer reviewed" Toxicology Reports article vaccines kill 5 for every 1 save
There a paper published in Toxicology Reports that included an analysis purporting to estimate causal vaccine deaths in the US claiming...
Covid-19 Data Science
Finding the signal in the noise of Covid-19
Reporting and balanced evaluation of research results, data sets, applications and models, and commentaries related to Covid-19 and its underlying virus, SARS-Cov-2
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New USA study confirms VE wanes to ~50% after 5m, but VE vs. hospitalization remains strong at >90%
A paper published October 4, 2021 in The Lancet based on >3.4m USA patients found Pfizer vaccine effectiveness (VE) vs. infection...
Refuting Renz's "smoking gun" claim on vaccine deaths from Medicare data and whistleblower report.
A video that has been heavily circulated on social media this week is a presentation by attorney Thomas Renz claiming "We Got Them. Fact...
Do Pfizer vaccines "kill" 2 people for every 1 saved? Evaluating Steve Kirsch claims.
Summary of Key points: Blatantly misleading headlines have circulated on social media stating that that "FDA experts conclude Pfizer...
Interpreting VAERs: What is the expected background death rate for the USA vaccinated population?
VAERs is an open reporting system put together by the FDA and CDC for people to enter in adverse events after vaccination for post...
VA Tech talk: COVID Data Science: Evaluating and Aggregating Emerging Knowledge in the Pandemic
On 9/24/21 I gave a talk at Virginia Tech on evaluating and aggregating emerging knowledge in the pandemic. It might be the most...
How time confounding can bias vaccine effectiveness upwards via Simpson's paradox
OK -- one more Simpson's paradox themed post. There is one more major point I want to make sure people realize to avoid misinterpreting...
Are boosters a viable long-term strategy or just a Super Mario power-up?
An FDA panel voted on Friday to recommend 3rd shot boosters to adults over 65 in the USA. Are boosters a good idea? If so, do they have...
Simpson's paradox strikes again: Refuting reports vaxxed have 5x case fatality rate than unvaxxed
I have seen a lot of people obsessing with Table 5 of the August report put out the UK Public Health England focusing on the Delta...
Israeli MoH data show >1/3 of unvax 20-59yr previously infected
The Israeli ministry of health (MoH) releases periodic vaccination reports on its Telegram site. Today, the following table was...
What do new Israeli data say about effect of vaccines & boosters vs. death/critical/severe disease?
Key Points: I downloaded and analyzed data containing daily COVID-19 deaths and critical infection numbers from the Israeli ministry of...
Israeli data: How can efficacy vs. severe disease be strong when 60% of hospitalized are vaccinated?
A surge involving the rapidly-transmitting Delta variant in heavily vaccinated countries has led to much hand-wringing that the vaccines...
Israeli study suggests vaccine efficacy vs. infection decreases over time -- should we be worried?
A couple weeks ago, reports in Israel came out suggesting that Pfizer vaccine efficacy waned over time, sparking discussion of the...
Excess deaths, viral surges, and vaccines: Looking at UK data.
Excess deaths analyses is a useful calibration point for seeing how the pandemic has affected mortality that should be uncontroversial --...
NEJM paper demonstrates mRNA vaccines do NOT increase miscarriage rate.
There are numerous claims circulating on social media suggesting that the mRNA vaccines are dangerous to reproductive health and...
What do the UK data tell us about the Delta variant? Are the vaccines working?
Summary points: The Delta variant has taken over the UK The cases are predominantly young people, especially unvaccinated ones. Nearly...
Are the mRNA vaccines really safe? Evaluating claims by Steven Kirsch on danger of spike proteins
There are a number of individuals on social media confidently claiming the mRNA vaccines are dangerous and killing people, and implying...
Increasing calls from scientific community for transparent investigation of SARS-CoV-2 origins
An open letter was published this past week in the leading scientific journal Science by a leading group of scientists urging for a...
AIDS and COVID: A tale of two pandemics and the role of statisticians
Statistics in Medicine just published an article that my colleague Susan Ellenberg and I wrote comparing and contrasting the HIV-AIDS and...
Statistical Data Science, COVID-19, & Society; Current knowledge on immunity, vaccines, & variants
Here is an .mp4 file of a Keynote address I gave at the Innovations in Design and Analysis & Dissemination: Frontiers in Biostatistics...