It Would Have Been Worse (part 1)

Having a peek under the bonnet of pro-vaccine claims

I hope by now that even the most unenlightened members of society have realised that four doses of the elixir doesn’t prevent COVID. Friends and family who have been first in line for the initial, second, third and fourth jab are dismayed that they’ve been testing positive, with COVIDesque and other symptoms breaking out on a regular basis. The thought that it might be the jab never occurs to them, and those who’ve seen their doctor are told their repeating bouts of mystery illnesses cannot possibly be the jab; so they soldier on. If anybody asks how they’re faring with their second bout of COVID this year they invariably respond, “not too bad, but it would have been worse without the vaccine.”

Is that so? Let’s go find out…

Levelling The Test Match

It should be pretty obvious that we are able to count more COVID cases if we undertake more COVID tests. If, say, the infection rate amongst the population was 1% (1 in 100 people infected) then we’d expect to detect just 1 COVID case if we u…