Lin, et al. doesn’t have a lot going for it besides size.1 The researchers, out of UNC, trawled records for 1.37 million under-12-year-olds in North Carolina from October, 2021 to the 6th of this month, to try and suss how the rush-authorized 5-11 and .5-4 year-old experimental mRNA injections were performing (spoiler: they had failed).
The study likely suffers from loads of biases, including possible under-recording of events in unvaccinated kids (who might not actually be in the state during the study period) and over-recording of events in vaccinated kids (whose parents, by definition, might be more concerned about the virus and seek out provider-recorded tests2). Ostensibly these biases should be less of a problem for hospitalizations.
But given that the 5-11 Pfizer vaccine was notoriously authorized based on immunobridging, a.k.a. “lookee, antibodies,” with no severe infections in either the treatment or control group even occurring — and future updates from the kids’ trials are unlikely to air the dirty laundry of severe efficacy, Lin, et al. is what we’ve got to go on.
Pfizer ACIP presentation preceding recommendation of Covid vaccines in kids 5-11 based on… antibodies. cdc.gov (pdf)
Zero or possibly negative severe efficacy in 5-11
Headline results:
(For the 0-4 year olds products, infection efficacy was durable at 60% over 5 months; severe outcomes were not evaluated due to low incidence.3)
Immediately, the reader should bear in mind that the biggest confounder at work is when kids get vaccinated. Some received the original course when the BA.1 Omicron wave was going full throttle; some during periods of reduced risk; some would have had natural immunity; some this, some that, etc. It’s a giant statistical mess. That’s besides the unknowable question of whether vaccinated children were more vulnerable to hospitalization due to prioritizing injection for comorbidities, or less vulnerable due to demographic and behavior factors, etc.
Additionally, hospitalizations in the post-authorization era were rare, hence the wide confidence intervals for the figure on the right.
With those two limitations kept in mind, all that can be said is it seems like the vaccine isn’t preventing hospitalizations.
Why would it.
It wasn’t investigated for such an effect before authorization (no severe outcomes in the trial), and the likely fact is that for children, SARS-CoV-2 is just another coronavirus. Front-loading antibodies is akin to doubling-up on seatbelts; there’s no extra benefit because kids are already mostly protected by innate immunity.
Additionally, it seems like the vaccines may increase hospitalizations on a per-infection rate. This can be inferred from the simple fact that hospitalization efficacy bottoms out before infection efficacy — the Covid vaccinated kids have now been hospitalized just as much, despite fewer recorded infections.
Support for negative severe efficacy in the raw numbers?
Raw results, such as they are, are difficult to parse due to the matters of timing already mentioned. Kids who remained unvaccinated throughout the study would have faced over a year of risk; vaccinated kids after would have only faced the risk of infection from the day they were declared fully vaccinated.
Fortunately, before-and-after injection infections are broken down by final injection-count. This allows a precarious comparison of hospitalization outcomes by the one standard that can serve to normalize risk: getting infected (with a final re-acknowledgement that there will be biases affecting testing rates, etc.)
Pre-authorization infections (faint underline, unvaccinated) can be ignored as representing pre-Omicron variants, with different baseline outcome rates. Pre-2nd dose infections (faint underline, 2 doses only) can be ignored since they reflect the same ratio of natural immunity in the unvaccinated at the time of authorization. The problem is what to do with the “Before 3rd dose” infections — there is no way to know if those were before or after the 2nd dose.
CH/FR, hospitalizations/deaths per 1,000 infections (post-authorization / injection)
-This subtracts the 2nd dose .13 prior infection ratio to the 8,584 pre-3rd-dose infection to infer that 2,488 infections occurred between the 2nd and 3rd dose, and assumes zero hospitalizations resulted. As can be seen, even this extremely generous assumption only results in reattaining zero (just slightly negative) severe efficacy.
The final questions are 1) Whether CHR worsened over time, or if it was constant (with severe efficacy thus merely mirroring infection efficacy. And 2) What Lin, et al.’s formulas showed for severe efficacy in kids more than 6 months past the 2nd dose.
Conclusion:
Injecting kids with the experimental mRNA Covid vaccines appears to be (predictably) completely pointless. Severe outcomes are totally even after 6 months, and may reflect worse performance on a per-infection basis.
However, the deployment of rapid tests partway through the study could have reversed this bias, by allowing the most virus-vigilant to self diagnose as negative.
There's nothing in these numbers that suggest there was any prevention from infection that could not be explained by other factors like healthy user bias. Also, isn't it commonly accepted at this point across even most of the mainstream that the vaccines have no significant impact on infection and transmission. How can it be that when you give these vaccines to children they prevent infection but we know nothing about serious outcomes when the opposite claim is now made for adults?
not completely pointless if the intent is to kill and injure.
There's nothing in these numbers that suggest there was any prevention from infection that could not be explained by other factors like healthy user bias. Also, isn't it commonly accepted at this point across even most of the mainstream that the vaccines have no significant impact on infection and transmission. How can it be that when you give these vaccines to children they prevent infection but we know nothing about serious outcomes when the opposite claim is now made for adults?