Higher COVID-19 vaccine uptake = more cases and deaths.
A 2021 study by Subramanian examined the relationship between the rate of cases and vaccine coverage.
They found that “at the country-level, there appears to be no discernible relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days. In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with a higher percentage of the population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people. Notably, Israel with over 60% of their population fully vaccinated had the highest COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in the last 7 days. The lack of a meaningful association between the percentage of the population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases are further exemplified, for instance, by comparison of Iceland and Portugal. Both countries have over 75% of their population fully vaccinated and have more COVID-19 cases per 1 million people than countries such as Vietnam and South Africa that have around 10% of their population fully vaccinated.”
When studying the US it was found that “of the top 5 counties that have the highest percentage of the population fully vaccinated (99.9–84.3%), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies 4 of them as “High” Transmission counties. Chattahoochee (Georgia), McKinley (New Mexico), and Arecibo (Puerto Rico) counties have above 90% of their population fully vaccinated with all three being classified as “High” transmission. Conversely, of the 57 counties that have been classified as “low” transmission counties by the CDC, 26.3% have a percentage of the population fully vaccinated below 20%.”
Subramanian summarised by saying “the sole reliance on vaccination as a primary strategy to mitigate COVID-19 and its adverse consequences need to be re-examined, especially considering the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant and the likelihood of future variants. Other pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions may need to be put in place alongside increasing vaccination rates. Such course correction, especially with regards to the policy narrative, becomes paramount with emerging scientific evidence on real-world effectiveness of the vaccines” because even if the vaccine was marginally effective we should see a decrease in cases correlating with an increase in vaccination rates.
It is claimed that vaccination offers protection to individuals against severe hospitalization and death but “the CDC reported an increase from 0.01 to 9% and 0 to 15.1% (between January to May 2021) in the rates of hospitalizations and deaths, respectively, amongst the fully vaccinated.”
Source:
Subramanian, S.V. and Kumar, A., 2021. Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States. European Journal of Epidemiology, pp.1-4. Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/