Vaccinations do not cause excess mortality

Excess mortality and the figures from the British Statistical Office

On the website of a “citizens' initiative for holistic and more humane medicine” there is still a leaflet with dangerous false statements about corona vaccinations. The so-called “Health Courier” warns on the back that vaccination is not intended to protect against severe disease and cites an old study by the Robert Koch Institute from November 4th, 2021. That wasn't true back then and doesn't correspond to the RKI's current positions on the effectiveness of vaccinations .

On the front of the leaflet, which comes from a well-known doctor from the scene of the critics of the measures, many other unsubstantiated and dangerous claims are made. The headline reads: “Highest excess mortality in 75 years.” A graphic with figures from the British Office for National Statistics from November 2021 serves as evidence. This graphic suggests that between summer and autumn 2021, around twice as many twice-vaccinated people aged 10-59 would have died as unvaccinated people (based on each 100,000 People).

These numbers seemed very unrealistic to us, so we traced them back to the data source from which they were borrowed: “Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status, England: deaths occurring between 1 January and 31 October 2021”. The available data has been prepared in great detail and also refers to the general state of health. Table 1 lists the specific numbers: around 28 times as many unvaccinated people died of Covid during the observation period as people who were vaccinated twice.

Chapter 4 further breaks down the numbers for Covid deaths, noting: “The monthly age-standardized mortality rate (ASMR) for COVID-19-related deaths is consistently lower among people who received the second dose at least 21 days ago unvaccinated people.” This is also evident in the individual age cohorts.

There is only one statistical outlier (see Figure 4), which the study investigated further: during three summer months, the mortality rate of those who had been vaccinated twice was higher in the 18 to 39 year old cohort than among the unvaccinated. The “Gesundheitskurier” picked out exactly this small detail. However, without the explanation that the Office for National Statistics immediately provides: the figures can “probably be explained by the fact that clinically vulnerable people are given priority for vaccination” and are reduced “if differences in health status are taken into account”.

By the way, some German communities and regional media are warning about the “health courier” [1, 2, 3].

What is the excess mortality in Germany?

There is also no positive correlation between vaccination rates and excess mortality, on the contrary. Last November, a position paper waves on social media that claimed: “The higher the vaccination rate, the higher the excess mortality.” Yes, a position paper and not a study, as it was often incorrectly called. Hans-Georg Maaßen also contributed significantly to the spread of the false claims by sharing the paper on Twitter:

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The text comes from two psychologists who used publicly available figures from the Robert Koch Institute and the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) as a basis for their own statistical calculations. Rolf Steyer and Gregor Kappler summarize their findings as follows:

The correlation between excess mortality in the federal states and their vaccination rate when weighted with the relative number of inhabitants of the federal state is .31. This number is surprisingly high and would be expected to be negative if vaccination reduced mortality. For the period under consideration (week 36 to week 40, 2021), the following applies: the higher the vaccination rate, the higher the excess mortality. Given the upcoming political measures to contain the virus, this figure is worrying and requires explanation if further political measures are to be taken with the aim of increasing the vaccination rate.

Excerpt from “The higher the vaccination rate, the higher the excess mortality” by Prof. Dr. Rolf Steyer and Dr. Gregor Kappler, November 16, 2021. Emphasis by Mimikama

However, the two authors only see the above statement as the most likely explanation for the numbers, as they state at the very end of their text: “Other explanations are by no means excluded.” cannot confirm the interpretation of the paper . “This is not a serious evaluation that is being made public.” When you do the math, you don’t even come up with the alleged correlation. And correlation does not mean causation. Important factors have been hidden.

The fact that there is no systematic connection between vaccination rates and excess mortality can be seen from the graphic that the researchers created.

Felix zur Nieden, expert on demography and death rates at the Federal Statistical Office

The authors subsequently justified themselves by saying that the paper was only intended for MP Ute Bergner and a current hour of the Thuringian state parliament: “We did not authorize or even cause the note to be distributed and passed on on the Internet and social media. For the avoidance of doubt, the note is neither a scientific publication nor a sound scientific study that meets our own quality standards.”

Ute Bergner presented the findings from the text in the state parliament on November 17, 2021: She noticed two theories during the pandemic: “Theory one: vaccination reduces the probability of death. Theory two: The side effects of the vaccination lead to increased deaths.” For six weeks, a ten percent excess mortality rate has been recorded. She therefore wanted to know which of the two theories was more likely and commissioned two statisticians to analyze the published figures. The result, according to Bergner: As the vaccination rate increases, excess mortality increases.

Three economists from EAH Jena, all three experts in the “application of quantitative methods and data science methods”, also looked at the published figures. However, they come to a completely different conclusion : "The study suggests that the excess mortality can be at least partially explained by COVID-19 cases and that vaccinations prevented infections or caused a milder course."

Do Covid vaccines damage the immune system? No!

Dr. YouTube consultation, Janos Hegedüs deals with a video that has also been shared widely. It was about a misinterpretation of the often-quoted Lancet study , with “sensational, dramatic and frightening study results”: According to Volker Schmiedel, mRNA vaccines are said to damage the immune system. Hegedüs: “That’s nonsense. There is no evidence of this.”

The study compared side effects of vector and mRNA vaccines. It was discovered that the vector vaccines examined can sometimes have a positive effect on the immune response against other infectious diseases. No such surprising, completely unplanned but positive side effects were found with the mRNA vaccines. Conversely, Schmiedel's reasoning is wrong: just because the mRNA vaccines do not have this side effect does not mean that they are harmful to the immune system.

At the end of the video, Dr. Hegedüs made it clear again: “The studies cited were extremely rarely the problem throughout the Covid period. The interpretation doesn't seem to work, that's the problem. The problem starts with headlines like this: “Do mRNA vaccines increase mortality?” This statement cannot be derived from the Lancet study.

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Conclusion

The claim “Corona vaccination causes excess mortality” cannot be substantiated. The figures from Great Britain and Germany suggest the exact opposite. Of course, there can be selective, statistical outliers, but cherry-picking does not change the general assessment: the Covid vaccines do not harm, but rather protect against serious illness and death.

More on the topic: No, these doctors did not die shortly after a Covid vaccination