The English data on vaccines and mortality, revisited
alexberenson.substack.com
Last Saturday morning I posted a short post with a very simple chart - two lines in all.
One line tracked the number of weekly deaths per 100,000 vaccinated people aged 10-59 in England. The other tracked the number of deaths per 100,000 unvaccinated people in England. The chart showed that vaccinated people in this age group were dying overall at a higher rate than unvaccinated people.
I’m never exactly sure which posts will “land” - gain traction and go viral. This chart landed. Hard. Someone wrote me that it broke the Internet. It didn’t break the Internet, only Kim Kardashian’s ass can break the Internet, but it has rocketed around ever since. It has been seen over 800,000 times on this page alone and many millions more in screenshots and Twitter posts elsewhere.
Clearly, the reason the chart has gained so much attention is that it quickly and simply provides a way for people who are concerned about the vaccines to provide apparent visual proof that they are increasing all-cause mortality - overall death rates.
The chart has also engendered a fierce backlash from the usual fact-checkers and vaccine fanatics who say it is - wait for it - “misinformation.” (To be clear, I didn’t actually create the chart, but I checked the underlying British government report to make sure it accurately represents the report’s figures. It does, as everyone agrees.)
The “fact-checkers” have two primary complaints about the chart.
The first is that the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups are not exactly the same. A smaller percentage of teenagers than fifty-somethings are vaccinated, so the unvaccinated group overall skews somewhat younger than the older group. Since death rates rise with age, that difference may be enough to explain the gap between the two groups.
The second is that overall death rates in people over 60 (who are not covered in the chart) are much higher than those in the 10-59 range and appear to be lower in the vaccinated over the unvaccinated.
Another way to look at the objections: the first is that the chart doesn’t say what it seems to say, because of a hidden flaw in the data. The second is that it would be basically meaningless even if it did, because other more robust datasets contradict it.
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Part of being on Team Reality is acknowledging reality, and acknowledging when your critics have a factually correct objection. So I want to acknowledge that, like the chart itself, these objections BOTH are valid and factually accurate, viewed individually.
What the fact-checkers and vaccine fanatics appear incapable of understanding is that the two objections effectively cancel each other out - and do nothing to address concerns over the long-term failure of Covid vaccines or their impact on all-cause mortality.
These folks think they are sophisticated thinkers who have blown up apparent evidence that the vaccines are dangerous. In fact, just as they have for the last several months, they are telling themselves what they want to hear instead of listening to what the data are saying - and, increasingly, shouting.
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They have identified and latched on to ONE complication of using population-level data to judge vaccine effectiveness - the fact that differing rates of uptake by age may make the Covid vaccines seem less effective than they are.
But they - deliberately or out of ignorance - are ignoring another one, one that makes the vaccines seem MORE effective than they are.
The second problem is not a secret to epidemiologists.
It has been quietly discussed for flu vaccines for more than a decade, and I have written about it repeatedly in the last year. The problem is this: the popular belief that sick people are more likely to be vaccinated than healthy people is entirely wrong.
People who receive vaccines are healthier overall than those who do not. They care more about avoiding sickness, and they have the time and energy and money to find their way to a vaccination site. They are not healthier because they get vaccines; they get vaccines because they are healthier.
Older people who receive flu vaccines die - of both the flu and all causes - at much lower rates than unvaccinated people after they receive flu shots. But they also die at much lower rates BEFORE they receive the vaccines. The seminal study demonstrating this relationship is now more than 15 years old; it was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology in April 2006.
"The reductions in risk before influenza season indicate preferential receipt of vaccine by relatively healthy seniors,” the authors wrote.
This paradox helps explain why a huge study of flu vaccines in the United Kingdom showed that increasing vaccination levels in older people did not reduce to the number of hospitalizations or deaths from the flu.
The researchers took advantage of the fact that Britain prioritizes people 65 and older for vaccinations and that people are much more likely to get a shot when they are 65 or 66 than 64 or 63. Vaccination levels rose sharply as people turned 65, but the health of the people who received the shots did not improve.
The same pattern is visible in the United States, where a massive increase in the number of flu vaccines in the last generation has made no apparent difference in the number of flu deaths. In fact, in 2005, researchers noted that although vaccinations had risen from 20 percent of elderly people in 1980 to 65 percent in 2001, “unexpectedly, estimates of influenza-related mortality in this age group also increased [emphasis added] during this period.”
In other words, influenza vaccines only seem to work. Any observational estimate that compares death rates in people who have gotten shots to those who have not will be inherently untrustworthy, no matter how hard researchers try to correct for the healthy recipient bias.
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What is true for flu vaccines appears to be even more true for Covid vaccines.
The relentless vaccination push means that in many countries, more than 90 percent of elderly people are vaccinated. The split is even more stark in countries like England, where 2.44 million people 80 and over have been fully vaccinated, compared to 69,000 who are unvaccinated (and 24,000 who have received the first dose but not the second).
Look at those numbers again.
2,440,000 people in England 80 and over vaccinated. Almost 97 percent of the total number of elderly people.
69,000 80 and over unvaccinated. Less than 3 percent.
These two groups cannot remotely be compared.
How do they differ? I can’t find any hard data, but we know that at least a fraction of the elderly unvaccinated are too ill to be vaccinated. Some are in hospice care. Norway recommended against giving people in hospice the Covid vaccine in January following deaths in terminally ill patients.
A paper published online in March in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management noted that “communication from hospice organizations has primarily emphasized the vaccination of hospice staff without the same priority mention for patients” and called for hospices to do more to offer vaccines to patients.
The paper’s title was even starker:
A Shot at Inclusion: Reconsidering Categorical Exclusion of Hospice Patients from COVID Vaccine Allocation.
How many Covid deaths in unvaccinated elderly people are actually “with Covid” deaths in people dying in hospice? Again, we don’t know. But what we know is that even a small number of those deaths will hopelessly bias the relative risk ratio for unvaccinated to vaccinated Covid deaths, because the overall number of unvaccinated people is so small.
As of September, about 30 to 35 unvaccinated English people 80 and over died of or with Covid each week, compared to about 250 fully vaccinated people a week.
So trying to measure vaccine effectiveness by looking at the relative risks of the vaccinated and unvaccinated elderly is impossible. But that is exactly what the health authorities and their servants in the media do when they put out figures that seem to show the risk of death from Covid is much lower in elderly people who have been vaccinated.
They are lying with truthful data, and they (some of them, anyway, though probably not the reporters who are writing the stories) are smart enough to know exactly what they’re doing.
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Meanwhile, they are ignoring a much more important indicator - trends in both Covid and all-cause mortality are very much going the wrong way in the vaccinated elderly population.
In the last four weeks for which British data are available, roughly coinciding with September, about 1,000 vaccinated English people 80 and over died from Covid and 16,000 from all causes.
Compare those numbers to four weeks in May, when fewer than 70 vaccinated English people 80 and over died from Covid and 13,000 from all causes.
Put another way, overall deaths rose more than 20 percent in the vaccinated elderly from May to September, and Covid deaths 15-fold. And this was not because many more people were vaccinated. The number of vaccinated elderly people rose only about 4 percent from May to September.
Compare that to the mortality trends in unvaccinated English people 80 and over.
About 800 died of all causes in four weeks in May (at the time, there were about 77,000 unvaccinated elderly people, compared to 69,000 in September). Fewer than 20 of those died of Covid.
In September, about 140 unvaccinated elderly people died of Covid - a eight-fold increase compared to the 15-fold increase in the vaccinated.
The striking part is that only 700 unvaccinated elderly English people died OF ALL CAUSES in those four weeks in September - FEWER than back in May. (The trend roughly tracked the overall drop in the elderly unvaccinated population. It appears that about 1 percent of those folks die a month, at least in warmer months.)
This trend is stunning for two reasons.
First, the fact that 100 more unvaccinated elderly people (supposedly) died of Covid in September yet 100 fewer of them died overall strongly suggests that many of those reported deaths are actually with and not from Covid.
Second, per capita all-cause mortality - not just Covid mortality, all-cause mortality - rose close to 20 percent in the very large group of the vaccinated elderly. Some of those extra deaths came from Covid. But most did not.
And though death rates are still somewhat higher in the unvaccinated - as they should be, given the fact that vaccine recipients are healthier - but that fact is far less relevant than the notable rise in the vaccinated.
What’s behind the rise in those deaths in the vaccinated elderly? We don’t know. But we’d better find out. Especially since we are now stuffing boosters into their arms.
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All of this is somewhat complicated, I’ll admit. The data has lots of confounders and continues to evolve. And trying to explain relative changes in all-cause mortality in the context of healthy vaccine recipient bias using papers about flu vaccine - well, it’s not a soundbite.
Which comes back to the chart from last week.
The chart IS a soundbite.
It is a simple and factually accurate way to say:
Something is wrong. The promises that the health authorities have made over the last 12 months about the vaccines are not coming true. Despite near-complete levels of adult vaccination in Europe, many countries are seeing skyrocketing Covid cases and deaths. And worst of all, all-cause non-Covid mortality is running well above normal in country after country.
Not everyone is going to wade through this article. But everyone can read that chart from last week. It’s not perfect, but it uses real data to raise a crucial issue.
That’s why it landed. And that’s why the vaccine fanatics hate it so much.
I really had to laugh when I read the part about the elderly and flu vaccines. We had this discussion this morning with my dad. About 15 years ago he started taking the flu shot. Since then he says, he never had the flu nor a cold ! Even the doctor tried several times to tell him the shot does nothing for the cold, it is an entirely different illness. Then I asked him how often he remembered to have the flu before he got the shots. Never. He never had the flu. But he takes the dangerous shots.... I am 64 and hope to stay away from any shots. I also hope I will remember this sentence in 20 years from now if still alive.
Currently reading RFK Jr's new book about Fauci (while I wait for Plandemia which I received shipping notice this morning - finally!!). Everyone needs to read RFK's book...it does an outstanding job explaining how Fauci has been (and is currently?) able to set up trials so they either succeed or fail based solely on how it benefits him. It'll make sick and angry that this has been "allowed" to continue for over 40 years.
Oh WELL DONE ALEX!!! I too am a grateful reader and your response to the critics MADE MY DAY. I am not crazy. You are not crazy. There is something WRONG and the DATA are trying to tell us as best they can that we need to STOP and INVESTIGATE. Bravo, You are a hero. Thank you so much.
"Something is wrong. The promises that the health authorities have made over the last 12 months about the vaccines are not coming true. Despite near-complete levels of adult vaccination in Europe, many countries are seeing skyrocketing Covid cases and deaths. And worst of all, all-cause non-Covid mortality is running well above normal in country after country."
Amen. People can nitpick about methodology and confounders but it's all a sideshow. If Covid is as dangerous as claimed, and if the vaccine worked as promised, that chart should have been impossible despite supposed data flaws. Common folks get this intuitively which is what so scares those running this debacle.
I believe there is a third issue with the data that I didn't see mentioned. The size of vaccinated population is calculated from the number of vaccines administered. The size of the unvaccinated population is calculated from a rough estimate of the total number of people in the UK minus the number of people vaccinated. The size of the unvaccinated population may be completely off.
This is why the loss of the long term control group for the vaccine trials is so obnoxious.
Having turned 80 this year, and still possessing most of my faculties, to "Booster" or not is a nagging dilemma. I am not a natural born skeptic, Polio was the scourge of my childhood....so, I took all of the recommended vaccines, and I have never been truly sick in my life...aside from an occasional bout of Gin-Fever! Something happens when the calendar says....80 years old! That is really OLD! My doctor, who is very conservative, and has expressed his concerns about the "jab" in the past, is now recommending the booster. But, my "healthy as a horse" 83 year old brother-in-law died of a heart attack 2 weeks after having received his 2nd Pfizer shot. Never had any heart problems before. The docs insist it was not related to the vaccine....??
My point, I suppose, is how maddening it is that this Covid-mess has been created by our inept government, literally and figuratively! It has been politicized to the point that we have ZERO CONFIDENCE in anything they say or do. But, I am not ready to die.....and....living in fear and confusion, I suspect, may be just as damaging as just taking the damn booster.
Let's see if we can square this circle. The thing that was supposed to "save" us from a virus we don't really need saving from failed miserably, and yet with the new moronic variant hysteria they're advocating for more of the same thing that failed miserably for the last variant. I can't offer Kim K's ass either, but maybe this is all about something else entirely?
I read the article and several statistical reviews. I think the chart was good to gain attention, and I found the statistical reviews informative (they did find an increase in all cause mortality in the vaccinated, with levels rising, but not to the point they double overall all cause mortality).
Beyond that I now know 3 healthy dads that died since October 1st between the ages of 40-50 (the most recent dropped dead while mountain biking within the last 2 weeks - no accident, just dropped dead. Autopsy in process).
I do think it’s inaccurate to imply the vaccine is causing all cause mortality to be fully double in the vaccinated v unvaccinated group because of the age skewing, which is greater than any underlying co-morbid disease difference. The physiological insinuation is also assumption - personally, the healthier people I know are far more scared of the vaccine, on average, than the less healthy who are terrified of Covid (oddly, even if they have recovered).
What does concern me is the rise in unexplained or cardiac related mortality in the vaccinated group. Even 1 death per 100,000 makes these vaccines very dangerous for the vast majority of the population that faces a lower risk from SARS-cov-2. It also suggest we should be focusing on early treatment, not mass vaccinations correlated to worse population wide outcomes. Most of the actually vulnerable are already dead. Fifty year olds getting early treatment die at lower rates than 1 in 100,000. Even unhealthy 25 year olds with no treatment die at a much lower rate. My true fear is vaccine induced mortality is closer to 1 in 25,000 which is awful. They pulled the H1N1 vaccine within the last decade for causing severe insomnia at similar rates…… and these are actual lives. Human beings who still had lives to lead. Some of them children.
Can you find data with more nuanced age groups? I do appreciate the focus on this stuff. These vaccines are at best simply not working with mass vaccination (this robbing the genuinely elderly of even temporary protection). More likely they are lethal. They don’t need to kill as many people under 65 as auto accidents or overdose deaths to be awful. Graphs showing increased mortality excluding accidental deaths would clearly differentiate the groups, but I find that data hard to find.
They aren’t offering any durable protection, so every death from the vaccines is an unnecessary tragedy - particularly when the deaths occur in someone coerced into taking it to keep a job or remain enrolled in school.
Alex should mention 2004. That was the year flu vaccines were in “critically “ short supply. Interestingly, the official flu death rates for that year barely deviated from any other year.
Italian newspaper Il Tempo reports that the Institute has revised downward the number of people who have died from COVID rather than with COVID from 130,000 to under 4,000.
“Yes, you read that right. Turns out 97.1% of deaths hitherto attributed to Covid were not due directly to Covid,” writes Toby Young.
bravo alex - way to acknowledge your opposing critiques and counterarguments and further explore your questions and points. Something is very strange with both the outcomes and the unilateralism of the worldwide covid regime, and you are a legend for nutting up and speaking into the wind. huge props to you!
Oh dear. I am sorry to learn that I am some kind of vaccine fanatic. This is odd as I am not vaccinated and will not get vaccinated with any of the currently available products. I will go to prison rather than take an mRNA or vector vaccine, and that is now a real possibility in my country.
"They have identified and latched on to ONE complication of using population-level data to judge vaccine effectiveness - the fact that differing rates of uptake by age may make the Covid vaccines seem less effective than they are. "
Your original claim boiled down to "vaccinated die more frequently", and if true that would indicate a problem with vaccine safety, not efficacy. The distinction between efficacy and safety is important. We know the efficacy of the vaccine does not last long. We also know the safety is questionable (but from other data like VAERS, not this data), and that as a result the benefit/risk ratio is low in young people with little to fear from infection, certainly compared to elderly, institutionalised people at high risk of death from infection.
"the two objections effectively cancel each other out "
Not really, because an observation of one effect in one age group has nothing to do with a countervailing effect in another.
The ONS data as broken down by age group is essentially worthless for answering questions about vaccine efficacy and safety. It can only tell us what is going on in terms of overall mortality in that population.
One may even speculate that the age breakdown is done deliberately to obfuscate things and make the data worthless for evaluating any effect (efficacy or safety) of the vaccines. Certainly, in my long experience in this field, the use of a 10-59 years band in any analysis of effect of medicines by age group is unique.
Isn't the central point that governments have foisted a universal, experimental injection upon the hundreds of millions of Americans (and people abroad) who were always at functionally zero risk?
I’ve been looking at the obituary pages in my local paper lately and I noticed there were several people who died that were in the 40’s to 60’s age range, which is rather strange given that you usually only see the elderly in the obits. 1 of the obits mentioned Covid as cause of death. I would lay money that the person was probably vax’d.
Alex did you see Mathew Crawford's reanalysis that accounts for population age? It shows precisely zero benefit (so not negative efficacy but obviously still showing a complete failure)
The UK officials could, of course, unconfound that chart by breaking the 10-59 group into 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, and 50-59 just like they do with those over age of 60. That they don't do this is a tell, in my not so humble opinion.
So I read in RFK jr’s book that Dr. Feces never presented one study, or even mentioned a treatment algorithm for Covid. He said stay home and quarantine until can’t breathe. Then we will put you on a ventilator and kill you.
Wanna know why? Because you can’t declare Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for a vaccine if there are other treatment options available.
These monsters killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions across the world.
Their own numbers condemn them. If you believe vaccines are beneficial, as the vaxxism practitioners do, then they're failing to reach the most vulnerable population -- unhealthy seniors. Meanwhile, they want to vaccinate 1 million teenagers to prevent 8,000 cases and 1 death.
Whew. Alex... thanks so much for this. I had posted this study to other comment sections saying pretty much what you summarize:
"Something is wrong. The promises that the health authorities have made over the last 12 months about the vaccines are not coming true. Despite near-complete levels of adult vaccination in Europe, many countries are seeing skyrocketing Covid cases and deaths. And worst of all, all-cause non-Covid mortality is running well above normal in country after country."
And they went nuts!
This says it all:
"These folks think they are sophisticated thinkers who have blown up apparent evidence that the vaccines are dangerous. In fact, just as they have for the last several months, they are telling themselves what they want to hear instead of listening to what the data are saying - and, increasingly, shouting."
I was lambasted with claims like "this is disinformation, you are dangerous and should be censored!"
There is no real intellectual curiosity nor intellectual honesty with the COVID vaccine cult. Not only is it impossible reason with them, but there is really no ability to engage in intellectual debate... no matter how clear is the data challenging their "science".
But here is why I think some of them are so determined to build their fortress of defense. The corporate media is continuing to deliver pandemic propaganda. I don't watch much TV "news", but I do listen to the radio and read newspapers. Biden dollars are also being used for government-paid "public service" advertising. There is a strong and consistent message that pushes this narrative that COVID is dangerous to all and everyone needs to be vaccinated.
Because of this and other dots I can connect, I am convinced that this is a PLANDEMIC and the Billionaire Boys Club, the globalists and the Democrats are all colluding to extend the chaos being caused as the catalyst for their Great Reset "Build Back Better" project. The pandemic gave the American Democrats the mail-in-ballot justification. Without it Trump would still be POTUS and the Senate still in GOP hands... and the Trump anti-globalist project would have made more progress. But the Democrats had failed to get their pet legislation passed (permanent mail-in ballots, immigrants give voting rights, and more massive social spending), and now they are in trouble leading into the mid-terms. So they NEED the pandemic to carry them through the 2022 election at least... so they can again cheat in the election and stuff more reliable Democrat favoring mailed ballots in the box.
I believe we are in WWIII and the pandemic is the new nuclear weapon. Thank God for people like Alex and platforms like Substack. With them we might again defeat the enemy of the world and get back to peace and prosperity.
Please don't downvote, I'm only the messenger (I know, it sounds a bit like a rambling incoherent Biden, but, no it is in fact Trump):
TRUMP: "I don't like [mandates], but I think you should. Look, I took it. I took the vaccine. I was proud to do it. Somebody said, oh, sir, maybe you know it’s a little controversial. Don't mention. Now just the opposite. I’m very proud."
"We did something in nine months – less than nine months that wasn’t doable in five years. Fauci said it would take more than five years, and who knows if it’s going to work. It really works well, and even the people that get it they don't end up going to the hospital – they don't die. But sometimes the person will – you know, very rarely, but the people get it. You know they make a big deal out of that, but people get it but they don't die. They don't go to the hospital even. It’s a great thing that we did and, you know, I’m never going – I’m never going to disown it. I think I saved tens of billions of people all over the world. (Inaudible)."
I read it. My head is spinning. So as I recall, Geert said in last interview that these numbers will flip. I have seen his projections. It is based on age groups. Vaccinated vs unvaccinated. In short, the unvaccinated was the most in peril, but that trend is reversing and thus by January the vaccinated will be the most in peril. It is because the vaccinated have compromised immune systems from vaccines. Their immune system are slowly degrading. The boosters will make things much worse. The worst part of this is that kids were never in peril, and now we have compromised their immune systems and they have a long life ahead with potential immune disease, or worse death.
The unvaccinated is like the control group. Probably many have acquired immunity by now. Many that took the vaccine probably had virus, never knew it, or knew it and believed more is better meaning vaccines would add more protection.
I am on page 80 of Fauci book. It is so depressing I can only read a few pages at a time without sobbing. 😟
THank you for this Mr. Berenson. THis type of post/ article is why I pre ordered your book and subscribed. The short updates are great. But clearly you have are a deep capable thinker and you care about this subject. Im grateful to you for your dedication and hard work. Maybe all cause mortality is up because of other underlying problems that were ignored during the worst of the pandemic like cancer, heart issues etc. People delayed and postponed getting routine screenings and other care. So maybe this is all catching up with us now. That could be the explanation. Or is it some delayed effect of the vaccines? I hope you stay on this subject. If the excess deaths are from secondary effects of imposed covid policies well this discredits all the covid policies. If the deaths are from vax delayed effects well then lets start criminal proceedings against those responsible. Either way it doesnt look good for the gov health establishments. This could be another full length book for you... thank you
What stunned me in this article was the part about vaccinating hospice patients. What the hell? What would be the point of that even IF the shots worked? The person is close to death. Why subject them to any unnecessary medical treatments? The medical establishment is certifiably insane.
For those waiting for a safe attenuated live virus vaccine, it may be here. Omicron, developed in Southern Africa and brought to you by Delta.... and United, Lufthansa and so on.
Since we are talking about their constant BS. I just watched "This Week with George Stephanopolis" were they just said that in San Francisco more people died of fentenyl than covid last year. So what is the real pandemic? In case you don't know this is Nancy Pelosi's district and San Fransisco is like LA with all the lockdowns etc. I wonder if all those fentenyl addicted people on the streets are vaccinated and have to show proof of vaccination to OD on the streets?
I appreciate this expanded analysis and am also worried about this. When I try to bring this up with friends/family they always say "that's because people put off preventative screenings/procedures". I concede, that might be some of it. How do I rebutt that claim?
The "fact check" complaint about the unvaccinated group skewing toward younger ages with expected lower death rates has an immediate problem.
The unvaccinated rate of deaths from all causes had been gradually declining since the end of January (off the chart to the left).
The UK did not start tracking the corresponding vaccinated death rate until March 19. But when they did start, the vaccinated death rate from all causes for ages 10-59 was lower than the unvaccinated death rate (see the beginning date on the chart).
Then suddenly the vaccinated death rate started going up dramatically at the beginning of April (with no change in the unvaccinated downward trend).
This rise in the vaccinated death rate cannot reasonably be explained by how many teenagers were being vaccinated. There must be some other reason.
A new steady-state has apparently emerged where the vaccinated are dying substantially faster than the unvaccinated. The question is why?
One help would be for these statistics to start being kept for 10-, 5- and 1-year age intervals, so we could tell what age group(s) were driving this phenomenon -- kept in more countries than the UK.
Thank God for Mr. Berenson and a few others courageous enough to tell the truth. This is no different than Galileo getting hauled up in front of the court for saying the earth revolves around the sun. Or maybe a better analogy is the witches of Salem, just mass hysteria run amok.
Anecdotally I see more and more older people ending up in the hospital and no it's not ones that hid inside for two years and skipped doctor appointments, it's active elderly that we're living their lives normally but still got the shot because of demanding family members and now they have bleeding ulcers and pancreatic disorders or kidney problems.
Alex has written a lot of great data analysis during the pandemic, but this is one of the best for sure. The dimwitted fact checkers who just blindly followed the scripts given to them by their masters were pretty pleased with themselves last week when they "indisputably" proved that the data didn't show what it appeared to show. In other words, believe me not your lying eyes. You could almost hear the sound of a mic drop. I had to pause for a moment when I saw that counter analysis, but even before reading what Alex wrote today, I could see that the reasons the so-called fact checkers were giving for the data appearing as it did were mathematically implausible.
What Alex is done today is identify another key issue that has been nagging at me throughout the pandemic. The expert opinions that are being bandied about by the low IQ fact checkers come from people who are probably actual experts in their extremely narrow specialties. One of the big problems we have right now is this move toward ultra reductionism in the biomedical sciences. It's a very interesting phenomenon after a strong push over the past couple of decades to move toward a more holistic, systems-based view of physiology.
It's a perfect example of reductionism, when the people doing the analysis are either unwilling or unable to understand two points of data in relation to each other and can only assess the data in isolation from all other data. As Alex astutely points out, both of the criticisms of the graphs that he presented are factually true in isolation but do not stand up to a more systemic analysis. (See how I did that with the use of the word systemic in the correct context?)
There was that recent abstract where a doctor was monitoring his patients heart vitals, both before and after vaccination, and noticed the vaccine's effect on inflammatory markers.
I'm wondering how many clinical trials currently in process for other conditions have been impacted by the vaccine. Are they keep tracking of who gets vaccinated as a possible confounder? We may be able get some decent statistics out of closely monitored groups for certain trials, using the "pre-vaccine" cohort of the same people as the control group. But only, I guess, if it's creating issues in the studies and if those running the studies are brave enough to report the results.
I am far from a vaccine fanatic, and in fact that is WHY I objected to the conclusion drawn based on the data in last week’s post. The situation is SERIOUS if indeed vaccinated people are dying at higher rates. This means allegations are likely to be completely discounted unless the data is unassailable. Providing data that is easy to invalidate and discredit means people are going to be even more likely to tune it out in future.
As acknowledged, the broad age range of 10-59 is enough to account for the entire disparity. The youngest are both least likely to die from all causes and least likely to be vaccinated--that is just too big a confounder to make meaningful inferences with unadjusted population-level data. No vaccine for a virus with an average 0.23% IFR is powerful enough to overcome a 50-year age advantage in terms of all-cause mortality. If the rates of vaccination were identical at all ages, it would tell us something. Otherwise, it simply can't.
The things I need to see to feel confident about a signal: vaxx vs unvaxx status (ensuring those with just one dose and those not past the 14-day window are not lumped into the unvaxxed category), stratified by age, compared not only to 2020 mortality but the 5-year rolling average (or longer). Also, we cannot randomly compare months, e.g. May versus September without also accounting for normal seasonal variation.
That's when people have a hard time explaining it away. We can't make it easy for them.
There are too many moving parts given age differences in each group, health differences in each group, greater push to vaccinate the elderly and sick early on, the delta variant being more contagious etc…. It’s close to impossible to control for all this.
All we really need is an explanation for the rise in all cause deaths of vaccinated people by age group.
If the explanation makes sense, there is no issue. If it is increased heart attacks, strokes etc..then there’s a problem.
Team reality here. I now treat the Covid nazis how I treat my children when I want to teach them a lesson. As they’re about to do something stupid (like touch a hot stove or get their 8th booster) I just stay silent and smile in my head watching the ensuing train wreck. The only difference is that my children are smarter than these folks and learn their lesson the first time. Maybe after booster number 20, heart attacks #2, or death, they’ll realize that the “vaccines” don’t work unless you own stock in Pfizer, Moderna, etc…
Well done Alex. However, you should have had a pic of Kardashian's ass this time around to make more people at least glance at the article. Bait and switch!
I really had to laugh when I read the part about the elderly and flu vaccines. We had this discussion this morning with my dad. About 15 years ago he started taking the flu shot. Since then he says, he never had the flu nor a cold ! Even the doctor tried several times to tell him the shot does nothing for the cold, it is an entirely different illness. Then I asked him how often he remembered to have the flu before he got the shots. Never. He never had the flu. But he takes the dangerous shots.... I am 64 and hope to stay away from any shots. I also hope I will remember this sentence in 20 years from now if still alive.
this chart is exactly why they are forcing the injection on everyone - to eliminate the control group.
Currently reading RFK Jr's new book about Fauci (while I wait for Plandemia which I received shipping notice this morning - finally!!). Everyone needs to read RFK's book...it does an outstanding job explaining how Fauci has been (and is currently?) able to set up trials so they either succeed or fail based solely on how it benefits him. It'll make sick and angry that this has been "allowed" to continue for over 40 years.
Oh WELL DONE ALEX!!! I too am a grateful reader and your response to the critics MADE MY DAY. I am not crazy. You are not crazy. There is something WRONG and the DATA are trying to tell us as best they can that we need to STOP and INVESTIGATE. Bravo, You are a hero. Thank you so much.
"Something is wrong. The promises that the health authorities have made over the last 12 months about the vaccines are not coming true. Despite near-complete levels of adult vaccination in Europe, many countries are seeing skyrocketing Covid cases and deaths. And worst of all, all-cause non-Covid mortality is running well above normal in country after country."
Amen. People can nitpick about methodology and confounders but it's all a sideshow. If Covid is as dangerous as claimed, and if the vaccine worked as promised, that chart should have been impossible despite supposed data flaws. Common folks get this intuitively which is what so scares those running this debacle.
Waded thru every word. Something is going on, as you point out. Thank goodness for people like you who keep digging for the truth.
I believe there is a third issue with the data that I didn't see mentioned. The size of vaccinated population is calculated from the number of vaccines administered. The size of the unvaccinated population is calculated from a rough estimate of the total number of people in the UK minus the number of people vaccinated. The size of the unvaccinated population may be completely off.
This is why the loss of the long term control group for the vaccine trials is so obnoxious.
Here's my dataset:
I'm unvaxxed and alive after nearly TWO YEARS of the pandemic.
I go out to the grocery store at least weekly and have been to restaurants, stores, etc. many, many times.
Do I think I'm likely to get the dreaded virus and die after all this time?
No, I don't.
End of Inquiry.
Having turned 80 this year, and still possessing most of my faculties, to "Booster" or not is a nagging dilemma. I am not a natural born skeptic, Polio was the scourge of my childhood....so, I took all of the recommended vaccines, and I have never been truly sick in my life...aside from an occasional bout of Gin-Fever! Something happens when the calendar says....80 years old! That is really OLD! My doctor, who is very conservative, and has expressed his concerns about the "jab" in the past, is now recommending the booster. But, my "healthy as a horse" 83 year old brother-in-law died of a heart attack 2 weeks after having received his 2nd Pfizer shot. Never had any heart problems before. The docs insist it was not related to the vaccine....??
My point, I suppose, is how maddening it is that this Covid-mess has been created by our inept government, literally and figuratively! It has been politicized to the point that we have ZERO CONFIDENCE in anything they say or do. But, I am not ready to die.....and....living in fear and confusion, I suspect, may be just as damaging as just taking the damn booster.
Let's see if we can square this circle. The thing that was supposed to "save" us from a virus we don't really need saving from failed miserably, and yet with the new moronic variant hysteria they're advocating for more of the same thing that failed miserably for the last variant. I can't offer Kim K's ass either, but maybe this is all about something else entirely?
https://thegoodcitizen.substack.com/p/seven-sins-in-the-time-of-covid
I read the article and several statistical reviews. I think the chart was good to gain attention, and I found the statistical reviews informative (they did find an increase in all cause mortality in the vaccinated, with levels rising, but not to the point they double overall all cause mortality).
Beyond that I now know 3 healthy dads that died since October 1st between the ages of 40-50 (the most recent dropped dead while mountain biking within the last 2 weeks - no accident, just dropped dead. Autopsy in process).
I do think it’s inaccurate to imply the vaccine is causing all cause mortality to be fully double in the vaccinated v unvaccinated group because of the age skewing, which is greater than any underlying co-morbid disease difference. The physiological insinuation is also assumption - personally, the healthier people I know are far more scared of the vaccine, on average, than the less healthy who are terrified of Covid (oddly, even if they have recovered).
What does concern me is the rise in unexplained or cardiac related mortality in the vaccinated group. Even 1 death per 100,000 makes these vaccines very dangerous for the vast majority of the population that faces a lower risk from SARS-cov-2. It also suggest we should be focusing on early treatment, not mass vaccinations correlated to worse population wide outcomes. Most of the actually vulnerable are already dead. Fifty year olds getting early treatment die at lower rates than 1 in 100,000. Even unhealthy 25 year olds with no treatment die at a much lower rate. My true fear is vaccine induced mortality is closer to 1 in 25,000 which is awful. They pulled the H1N1 vaccine within the last decade for causing severe insomnia at similar rates…… and these are actual lives. Human beings who still had lives to lead. Some of them children.
Can you find data with more nuanced age groups? I do appreciate the focus on this stuff. These vaccines are at best simply not working with mass vaccination (this robbing the genuinely elderly of even temporary protection). More likely they are lethal. They don’t need to kill as many people under 65 as auto accidents or overdose deaths to be awful. Graphs showing increased mortality excluding accidental deaths would clearly differentiate the groups, but I find that data hard to find.
They aren’t offering any durable protection, so every death from the vaccines is an unnecessary tragedy - particularly when the deaths occur in someone coerced into taking it to keep a job or remain enrolled in school.
Alex should mention 2004. That was the year flu vaccines were in “critically “ short supply. Interestingly, the official flu death rates for that year barely deviated from any other year.
Italian newspaper Il Tempo reports that the Institute has revised downward the number of people who have died from COVID rather than with COVID from 130,000 to under 4,000.
“Yes, you read that right. Turns out 97.1% of deaths hitherto attributed to Covid were not due directly to Covid,” writes Toby Young.
And thanks, Alex, for unblocking the comments page for us non-paying subscribers, if only for this important post.
bravo alex - way to acknowledge your opposing critiques and counterarguments and further explore your questions and points. Something is very strange with both the outcomes and the unilateralism of the worldwide covid regime, and you are a legend for nutting up and speaking into the wind. huge props to you!
Oh dear. I am sorry to learn that I am some kind of vaccine fanatic. This is odd as I am not vaccinated and will not get vaccinated with any of the currently available products. I will go to prison rather than take an mRNA or vector vaccine, and that is now a real possibility in my country.
"They have identified and latched on to ONE complication of using population-level data to judge vaccine effectiveness - the fact that differing rates of uptake by age may make the Covid vaccines seem less effective than they are. "
Your original claim boiled down to "vaccinated die more frequently", and if true that would indicate a problem with vaccine safety, not efficacy. The distinction between efficacy and safety is important. We know the efficacy of the vaccine does not last long. We also know the safety is questionable (but from other data like VAERS, not this data), and that as a result the benefit/risk ratio is low in young people with little to fear from infection, certainly compared to elderly, institutionalised people at high risk of death from infection.
"the two objections effectively cancel each other out "
Not really, because an observation of one effect in one age group has nothing to do with a countervailing effect in another.
The ONS data as broken down by age group is essentially worthless for answering questions about vaccine efficacy and safety. It can only tell us what is going on in terms of overall mortality in that population.
One may even speculate that the age breakdown is done deliberately to obfuscate things and make the data worthless for evaluating any effect (efficacy or safety) of the vaccines. Certainly, in my long experience in this field, the use of a 10-59 years band in any analysis of effect of medicines by age group is unique.
Isn't the central point that governments have foisted a universal, experimental injection upon the hundreds of millions of Americans (and people abroad) who were always at functionally zero risk?
High risk, low reward.
https://markoshinskie8de.substack.com/p/john-prine-self-healthcare-and-vaxx
I’ve been looking at the obituary pages in my local paper lately and I noticed there were several people who died that were in the 40’s to 60’s age range, which is rather strange given that you usually only see the elderly in the obits. 1 of the obits mentioned Covid as cause of death. I would lay money that the person was probably vax’d.
Alex did you see Mathew Crawford's reanalysis that accounts for population age? It shows precisely zero benefit (so not negative efficacy but obviously still showing a complete failure)
https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/uk-data-shows-no-all-cause-mortality
The UK officials could, of course, unconfound that chart by breaking the 10-59 group into 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, and 50-59 just like they do with those over age of 60. That they don't do this is a tell, in my not so humble opinion.
Thank you Alex! Your work is incredibly important! This reader (paid subscriber) is very grateful for your honest reporting...
Nothing is truer today....
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -Albert Einstein.
So I read in RFK jr’s book that Dr. Feces never presented one study, or even mentioned a treatment algorithm for Covid. He said stay home and quarantine until can’t breathe. Then we will put you on a ventilator and kill you.
Wanna know why? Because you can’t declare Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for a vaccine if there are other treatment options available.
These monsters killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions across the world.
Their own numbers condemn them. If you believe vaccines are beneficial, as the vaxxism practitioners do, then they're failing to reach the most vulnerable population -- unhealthy seniors. Meanwhile, they want to vaccinate 1 million teenagers to prevent 8,000 cases and 1 death.
Whew. Alex... thanks so much for this. I had posted this study to other comment sections saying pretty much what you summarize:
"Something is wrong. The promises that the health authorities have made over the last 12 months about the vaccines are not coming true. Despite near-complete levels of adult vaccination in Europe, many countries are seeing skyrocketing Covid cases and deaths. And worst of all, all-cause non-Covid mortality is running well above normal in country after country."
And they went nuts!
This says it all:
"These folks think they are sophisticated thinkers who have blown up apparent evidence that the vaccines are dangerous. In fact, just as they have for the last several months, they are telling themselves what they want to hear instead of listening to what the data are saying - and, increasingly, shouting."
I was lambasted with claims like "this is disinformation, you are dangerous and should be censored!"
There is no real intellectual curiosity nor intellectual honesty with the COVID vaccine cult. Not only is it impossible reason with them, but there is really no ability to engage in intellectual debate... no matter how clear is the data challenging their "science".
But here is why I think some of them are so determined to build their fortress of defense. The corporate media is continuing to deliver pandemic propaganda. I don't watch much TV "news", but I do listen to the radio and read newspapers. Biden dollars are also being used for government-paid "public service" advertising. There is a strong and consistent message that pushes this narrative that COVID is dangerous to all and everyone needs to be vaccinated.
Because of this and other dots I can connect, I am convinced that this is a PLANDEMIC and the Billionaire Boys Club, the globalists and the Democrats are all colluding to extend the chaos being caused as the catalyst for their Great Reset "Build Back Better" project. The pandemic gave the American Democrats the mail-in-ballot justification. Without it Trump would still be POTUS and the Senate still in GOP hands... and the Trump anti-globalist project would have made more progress. But the Democrats had failed to get their pet legislation passed (permanent mail-in ballots, immigrants give voting rights, and more massive social spending), and now they are in trouble leading into the mid-terms. So they NEED the pandemic to carry them through the 2022 election at least... so they can again cheat in the election and stuff more reliable Democrat favoring mailed ballots in the box.
I believe we are in WWIII and the pandemic is the new nuclear weapon. Thank God for people like Alex and platforms like Substack. With them we might again defeat the enemy of the world and get back to peace and prosperity.
Please don't downvote, I'm only the messenger (I know, it sounds a bit like a rambling incoherent Biden, but, no it is in fact Trump):
TRUMP: "I don't like [mandates], but I think you should. Look, I took it. I took the vaccine. I was proud to do it. Somebody said, oh, sir, maybe you know it’s a little controversial. Don't mention. Now just the opposite. I’m very proud."
"We did something in nine months – less than nine months that wasn’t doable in five years. Fauci said it would take more than five years, and who knows if it’s going to work. It really works well, and even the people that get it they don't end up going to the hospital – they don't die. But sometimes the person will – you know, very rarely, but the people get it. You know they make a big deal out of that, but people get it but they don't die. They don't go to the hospital even. It’s a great thing that we did and, you know, I’m never going – I’m never going to disown it. I think I saved tens of billions of people all over the world. (Inaudible)."
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/11/27/trump_biden_has_been_totally_unsuccessful_in_dealing_with_the_china_virus.html
I have a few words to say because as a hospitalist and residency trainer I am turning blue educating the educated. Fuc* them and hooray to Alex!
I read it. My head is spinning. So as I recall, Geert said in last interview that these numbers will flip. I have seen his projections. It is based on age groups. Vaccinated vs unvaccinated. In short, the unvaccinated was the most in peril, but that trend is reversing and thus by January the vaccinated will be the most in peril. It is because the vaccinated have compromised immune systems from vaccines. Their immune system are slowly degrading. The boosters will make things much worse. The worst part of this is that kids were never in peril, and now we have compromised their immune systems and they have a long life ahead with potential immune disease, or worse death.
The unvaccinated is like the control group. Probably many have acquired immunity by now. Many that took the vaccine probably had virus, never knew it, or knew it and believed more is better meaning vaccines would add more protection.
I am on page 80 of Fauci book. It is so depressing I can only read a few pages at a time without sobbing. 😟
THank you for this Mr. Berenson. THis type of post/ article is why I pre ordered your book and subscribed. The short updates are great. But clearly you have are a deep capable thinker and you care about this subject. Im grateful to you for your dedication and hard work. Maybe all cause mortality is up because of other underlying problems that were ignored during the worst of the pandemic like cancer, heart issues etc. People delayed and postponed getting routine screenings and other care. So maybe this is all catching up with us now. That could be the explanation. Or is it some delayed effect of the vaccines? I hope you stay on this subject. If the excess deaths are from secondary effects of imposed covid policies well this discredits all the covid policies. If the deaths are from vax delayed effects well then lets start criminal proceedings against those responsible. Either way it doesnt look good for the gov health establishments. This could be another full length book for you... thank you
What stunned me in this article was the part about vaccinating hospice patients. What the hell? What would be the point of that even IF the shots worked? The person is close to death. Why subject them to any unnecessary medical treatments? The medical establishment is certifiably insane.
Africa canceled orders from Pfizer and JNJ on 11-24
Africa is only 6% vaccinated, and covid has practically disappeared
https://newstarget.com/2021-11-22-africa-6percent-vaccinated-covid-disappeared-scientists-baffled.html
BOOOOOM... new variant
If we can reduce the worlds population from 7 billion to 1 billion I think all of these lockdowns will go away. Be patient friends.
For those waiting for a safe attenuated live virus vaccine, it may be here. Omicron, developed in Southern Africa and brought to you by Delta.... and United, Lufthansa and so on.
Since we are talking about their constant BS. I just watched "This Week with George Stephanopolis" were they just said that in San Francisco more people died of fentenyl than covid last year. So what is the real pandemic? In case you don't know this is Nancy Pelosi's district and San Fransisco is like LA with all the lockdowns etc. I wonder if all those fentenyl addicted people on the streets are vaccinated and have to show proof of vaccination to OD on the streets?
I appreciate this expanded analysis and am also worried about this. When I try to bring this up with friends/family they always say "that's because people put off preventative screenings/procedures". I concede, that might be some of it. How do I rebutt that claim?
They are coming for the infants. Your critics have no choice but to lose their minds at the horror.
The "fact check" complaint about the unvaccinated group skewing toward younger ages with expected lower death rates has an immediate problem.
The unvaccinated rate of deaths from all causes had been gradually declining since the end of January (off the chart to the left).
The UK did not start tracking the corresponding vaccinated death rate until March 19. But when they did start, the vaccinated death rate from all causes for ages 10-59 was lower than the unvaccinated death rate (see the beginning date on the chart).
Then suddenly the vaccinated death rate started going up dramatically at the beginning of April (with no change in the unvaccinated downward trend).
This rise in the vaccinated death rate cannot reasonably be explained by how many teenagers were being vaccinated. There must be some other reason.
A new steady-state has apparently emerged where the vaccinated are dying substantially faster than the unvaccinated. The question is why?
One help would be for these statistics to start being kept for 10-, 5- and 1-year age intervals, so we could tell what age group(s) were driving this phenomenon -- kept in more countries than the UK.
Thank God for Mr. Berenson and a few others courageous enough to tell the truth. This is no different than Galileo getting hauled up in front of the court for saying the earth revolves around the sun. Or maybe a better analogy is the witches of Salem, just mass hysteria run amok.
Anecdotally I see more and more older people ending up in the hospital and no it's not ones that hid inside for two years and skipped doctor appointments, it's active elderly that we're living their lives normally but still got the shot because of demanding family members and now they have bleeding ulcers and pancreatic disorders or kidney problems.
Alex has written a lot of great data analysis during the pandemic, but this is one of the best for sure. The dimwitted fact checkers who just blindly followed the scripts given to them by their masters were pretty pleased with themselves last week when they "indisputably" proved that the data didn't show what it appeared to show. In other words, believe me not your lying eyes. You could almost hear the sound of a mic drop. I had to pause for a moment when I saw that counter analysis, but even before reading what Alex wrote today, I could see that the reasons the so-called fact checkers were giving for the data appearing as it did were mathematically implausible.
What Alex is done today is identify another key issue that has been nagging at me throughout the pandemic. The expert opinions that are being bandied about by the low IQ fact checkers come from people who are probably actual experts in their extremely narrow specialties. One of the big problems we have right now is this move toward ultra reductionism in the biomedical sciences. It's a very interesting phenomenon after a strong push over the past couple of decades to move toward a more holistic, systems-based view of physiology.
It's a perfect example of reductionism, when the people doing the analysis are either unwilling or unable to understand two points of data in relation to each other and can only assess the data in isolation from all other data. As Alex astutely points out, both of the criticisms of the graphs that he presented are factually true in isolation but do not stand up to a more systemic analysis. (See how I did that with the use of the word systemic in the correct context?)
Alex, is there any statistical data that shows how Ivermectin or Hydrochloric win improve a response to covid-19 versus not using those Therapies
There was that recent abstract where a doctor was monitoring his patients heart vitals, both before and after vaccination, and noticed the vaccine's effect on inflammatory markers.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712
I'm wondering how many clinical trials currently in process for other conditions have been impacted by the vaccine. Are they keep tracking of who gets vaccinated as a possible confounder? We may be able get some decent statistics out of closely monitored groups for certain trials, using the "pre-vaccine" cohort of the same people as the control group. But only, I guess, if it's creating issues in the studies and if those running the studies are brave enough to report the results.
I am far from a vaccine fanatic, and in fact that is WHY I objected to the conclusion drawn based on the data in last week’s post. The situation is SERIOUS if indeed vaccinated people are dying at higher rates. This means allegations are likely to be completely discounted unless the data is unassailable. Providing data that is easy to invalidate and discredit means people are going to be even more likely to tune it out in future.
As acknowledged, the broad age range of 10-59 is enough to account for the entire disparity. The youngest are both least likely to die from all causes and least likely to be vaccinated--that is just too big a confounder to make meaningful inferences with unadjusted population-level data. No vaccine for a virus with an average 0.23% IFR is powerful enough to overcome a 50-year age advantage in terms of all-cause mortality. If the rates of vaccination were identical at all ages, it would tell us something. Otherwise, it simply can't.
The things I need to see to feel confident about a signal: vaxx vs unvaxx status (ensuring those with just one dose and those not past the 14-day window are not lumped into the unvaxxed category), stratified by age, compared not only to 2020 mortality but the 5-year rolling average (or longer). Also, we cannot randomly compare months, e.g. May versus September without also accounting for normal seasonal variation.
That's when people have a hard time explaining it away. We can't make it easy for them.
There are too many moving parts given age differences in each group, health differences in each group, greater push to vaccinate the elderly and sick early on, the delta variant being more contagious etc…. It’s close to impossible to control for all this.
All we really need is an explanation for the rise in all cause deaths of vaccinated people by age group.
If the explanation makes sense, there is no issue. If it is increased heart attacks, strokes etc..then there’s a problem.
Team reality here. I now treat the Covid nazis how I treat my children when I want to teach them a lesson. As they’re about to do something stupid (like touch a hot stove or get their 8th booster) I just stay silent and smile in my head watching the ensuing train wreck. The only difference is that my children are smarter than these folks and learn their lesson the first time. Maybe after booster number 20, heart attacks #2, or death, they’ll realize that the “vaccines” don’t work unless you own stock in Pfizer, Moderna, etc…
'Fact checkers' in all their current forms and funding, are Nazi book burners.
“The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books
Days before Omicron was announced S. Africa halted their vaccine orders from Pfizer due to lack of interest by its citizens.
Suddenly there’s a new variant originating from the region and travel is banned.
More punishment for “the unvaccinated”?
Well done Alex. However, you should have had a pic of Kardashian's ass this time around to make more people at least glance at the article. Bait and switch!
Nothing is truer today....
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -Albert Einstein.