It Would Have Been Worse (part 3)

Having a peek under the bonnet of pro-vaccine claims

In part 2 of this series I used the ratio of MV to general beds as a proxy of case severity. Some interesting features emerged in which we observed a sharp rise in reliance on MV beds in preference to general beds shortly after vaccination roll-out began. Though it could be argued this was the 2020/21 seasonal peak waiting to happen we have to ask why vaccines did little to alleviate this. Then there was the matter of prolonged reliance on MV beds over the summer months of 2021 at a time when viral infection within the population would have been minimal and risk of severe symptoms lowered. Either vaccines were exacerbating the situation or something else was going on. We also noted that roll-out of the booster was coincident with a background decline in reliance on MV beds that no doubt was inappropriately taken as evidence of vaccine benefit alone. Then we observed a puzzling plummet whereby MV bed use for COVID cases suddenly and dramatically declined at the start of 2022, this bein…