How to Lie with Statistics

How to Lie with Statistics is a book written by Darrell Huff in 1954. Admittedly I haven’t read the book, but it rose to prominence in recent years due to being on Bill Gates “Summer Book List” from 2015. While it was surmised by critics that Bill Gates may have wanted to use this for its literal meaning, the book is intended to make people aware of how true statistics can be misused to create incorrect conclusions.

It’s much like a video. People think if they see things on video then it must be true. But often things that have a huge impact on the context of a situation are not on the video. They are either out of view, or happened before the camera started rolling.

UK “Deaths involving COVID-19” reports

Back on the 13th of September the UK Office for National Statistics released a report entitled “Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status, England: deaths occurring between 2 January and 2 July 2021“.

On the 1st of November the report was re-released to include the data from 2 July to 24th September 2021.

The first main point in the first released report was as follows:

  • In England, between 2 January and 2 July 2021, there were 51,281 deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19); 640 occurred in people who were fully vaccinated, which includes people who had been infected before they were vaccinated.

If you were wanting to show the effectiveness the Covid-19 vaccines, then this an excellent statistic to have. This hammers home that this vaccine clearly reduces the risk of death from Covid-19. The vaccine must be very effective as these two figures of 51,281 and 640 throw quite a stark contrast.

A stark contrast, but is this a fair comparison?

When this data started being collected only 0.68% of the UK population was vaccinated. It wasn’t until April that this went above 10% and then June before this went above 50%. As of week 26, the last week of the data from the first report, this percentage was 59.4%.

As the vaccination rate is changing over time, I thought it would be helpful to map this. Thankfully you are able to download the full data sets from these reports with this information broken down. I was able to compare, 1) the unvaccinated population as a % of the total population, against 2) the unvaccinated Covid-19 deaths as a % of the total Covid-19 deaths. I did the same for the fully vaccinated. UV = Unvaccinated, FV = Two Dose vaccinated. There is also data for partially vaccinated people that is not shown in these graphs.

Chart showing % of Covid-19 Deaths of unvaccinated Population vs % of total population who are unvaccinated
Chart showing % of Covid-19 Deaths of vaccinated Population vs % of total population who are vaccinated

As you can see, the percentage of Covid-19 deaths amongst unvaccinated people follow very closely the percentage of unvaccinated people in the population. For fully vaccinated unsurprisingly we have the same situation where the percentage of Covid-19 deaths follows the percentage of population. In fact with fully vaccinated chart the visual appears to be more of a close correlation.

These rates following closely is what you would expect to see if Covid-19 affected all people equally. This is not what you would expect if the vaccine were effective. If the vaccine were effective then as the vaccine rates increase the percentage of deaths in the fully vaccinated should stay low. Especially when we have been told from the ‘pulpit of truth’ that vaccinated people, while they may still catch Covid-19, will not have severe illness nor die.

Why so many unvaccinated deaths?

The reason that there is a huge number of unvaccinated deaths, when compared to vaccinated deaths, is primarily because most of those deaths happened earlier on, before people were able to be vaccinated. You can see from the worldometer graph below that the main peak of deaths happened right at the start of this data window. It drops away to almost zero through the middle before picking up a little at the end. The window for the data from full data set from the second report is within the blue square.

Graphh of UK daily deaths, showing report data window.

Vaccines or Lockdowns?

Some people will then say “Hey, you can’t say that! The overall deaths have dropped so this must be because of the vaccine”. However it is not difficult to disprove this.

Graph showing Total COvid-19 deaths over time compared to the vaccination rate

As you can see clearly in the graph above, the deaths per day have almost bottomed out before the vaccine rate starts to rise around week 12. In fact 42,000 of these deaths occurred before even 5% of the population were vaccinated. The drop in deaths is far more likely attributed to a lockdown. This data starts on the 8th of January 2021. The UK entered it’s third National Lockdown on the 6th of January 2021.

What Vaccines are the UK using

I have had difficultly finding the exact numbers of administered vaccines by type in the UK. But I have found in this BBC article how many doses the UK have ordered. The Pfizer vaccine used in New Zealand seems to be a major player in the UK’s vaccination program.

Chart showing UK Vaccine orders

Comparison of the two reports

In report #1, the first main point listed above compares the 51,281 total deaths involving Covid-19 with the 640 deaths in people fully vaccinated. Interestingly an equivalent main point comparing these same figures is completely missing from report #2.

Why would the main point listed in a report, not be repeated in a subsequent report? Likely this is due to the fact that the deaths in the interim were 1,268 unvaccinated and 3,896 fully vaccinated. More than 3 times as many vaccinated people died than unvaccinated over this 12 week window. This is not a figure that we see mentioned in the summary.

Comparing 56,445 total deaths involving Covid-19 with 4,536 deaths in the fully vaccinated doesn’t quite have the same stark contrast. Maybe the editor could mention how the data makeup has changed significantly, or, yeah-nah we’ll just leave it out.

Comparison of Breakthrough Cases

Along with the main point in report #1 mentioned above, there were 4 other main points. 3 of these main points talk about breakthrough cases or deaths. According to dictionary.com a breakthrough case is “an instance in which a person becomes sick with a disease despite having received the vaccine for that disease. In other words, the vaccine fails to prevent the person from becoming infected.“

It goes on to say “Please note: No vaccine is 100% effective, but breakthrough cases are extremely rare. In the US, breakthrough cases of COVID-19 are reported to have occurred in less than 1% of all those vaccinated—as low as .01% in some studies.”

With 640 out of 51,281 we can talk about breakthrough cases as only 1.25% of deaths were in the vaccinated. However with 4,536 out of 56,445, it’s a bit more difficult. This is now more than 8% of the total covid-19 deaths. And more tragically, over 75% of the deaths within the last 12 weeks of this data set have been breakthrough deaths. So, while disappointing, it’s unsurprising that any mention of breakthrough deaths is completely missing from the main points in report #2. In fact, the word breakthrough is not mentioned at all in the second report, after 25 appearances in the first. Again, we’ll just leave that out.

In closing

I’m not saying that the vaccine is entirely ineffective. I’m certainly not saying that there is no data out there that is showing benefits. But I would say two things are abundantly clear.

It is absolutely BS to think that everything the government says is “truth”. Governments tell us that they are our source of truth. They are not worthy of the same label of “misinformation” they would happily smear on all who disagree. They are however still politicians, and are highly selective about what information is presented in order to manipulate perception.

It is also BS to think that the vaccine prevents death in a significant way as we have been told. First we were first told the vaccine stopped transmission. When this eventually be came an indefensible position, there was a quick change to ‘the vaccine prevents illness and death’. However this is now also an indefensible position, with the last week of the UK data painting a different picture. With 75% of the population being vaccinated, more than 75% of covid-19 deaths are in the vaccinated. And this is not new, this trend has been happening for the last year. Our leader has told the “team of 5 million” that if they get vaccinated then they won’t get severely sick, or die, and this is just not true!

Freedom!!!!!!!

2 Comments

I was reading a few things recently and came to understand something from a new perspective.

In the current situation sometimes I will hear someone say or imply that people wanting their freedoms are just being selfish. They are just fighting for their own freedoms. But I don’t think this is actually true.

I believe that when someone fights for freedom, whether they know it or not, they are actually fighting for freedom for everyone.

In Ethan’s post “Lessons from the Gulags” there is a very interesting quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

From that point of view our torturers have been punished most horribly of all: they are turning into swine, they are departing downward from humanity.

You can usually see the impact of the loss of freedom on the oppressed person quite easily. But what’s easy to miss is the impact this has on the oppressor. As Solzhenitsyn states, when you look at the soul, they receive punishment most of all.

In the Guest Post “Vaccine Mandates – A Small Business Perspective” there is a closing quote from Rosa Parks:

I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free… so other people would be also free.

Rosa Parks fought for freedom for herself. She also fought for freedom for black Americans.

But what did she, and others, actually gain?… Freedom for the whole of America.

Rosa may not have intended to include those who oppressed her in the group of “others” she was wanting to be free. But in regard to the “soul” of America, that is exactly what she helped to achieve.