‘Fully vaccinated’ people at 44% higher risk of COVID infection than unvaccinated: UK study

Oxford University researchers found that those who had taken the anti-COVID shots stood at substantially higher risk of infection with the coronavirus compared to those who had did not receive any COVID jab.

Two doses of COVID-19 vaccine make you 44 percent more likely to be infected, a study from Oxford University has found, contradicting the basis of global vaccine policy, which assumes vaccination significantly cuts incidence and transmission.

The study, published in the Lancet, looked at all infections reported in England among adults registered at a medical practice from December 8, 2020, to November 17, 2021, meaning it spanned the alpha and delta periods. It used a case-control design to estimate vaccine effectiveness, allowing potential confounding factors such as age, sex, and underlying conditions to be controlled for, while individuals with prior infection were excluded.

The results for effectiveness against positive COVID test (i.e., reported infection), which were found buried away in the supplementary appendix, are shown here.

I’ve highlighted in yellow three key figures. The top two show that in the two weeks following the first jab, individuals were three to four times more likely to test positive for COVID than their unvaccinated counterparts. This is further confirmation of the post-jab spike in infections that has often been noted and which there is evidence it is a result of the vaccination temporarily reducing immunity.

The third figure shows that two weeks or more after the second jab – which during 2021 was regarded as “fully vaccinated” – individuals were 44 percent more likely to be infected than their unvaccinated counterparts. This is negative vaccine effectiveness (where infections are higher in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated) of minus-44 percent. This negative effectiveness is in line with what was seen in the raw data from England at the time and also in studies from other countries, but contradicts the government’s official estimates, which claimed effectiveness to be 60–85 percent against delta infection.

The new study indicates that the negative effectiveness was not just a result of confounding factors or a ‘catch-up’ effect, where the vaccinated have lower infection rates initially then higher infection rates as the effect of the vaccine wears off, as some have claimed.

Acknowledging the figures, the authors write: “Surprisingly, we observed a higher risk of test positivity after vaccination with one or two doses across all BMI groups, which is contrary to evidence reported by the U.K. ONS [Office for National Statistics].” What they don’t mention is that it is fully in line with data from the U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA), nor that the ONS is known to overestimate infection rates in the unvaccinated because it underestimates the population – the ONS puts the unvaccinated adult population at 8 percent whereas the NIMS database puts it at 19 percent (and surveys higher still at 26 percent).

READ: Young adults up to 100x more likely to suffer COVID jab injuries than be protected: Study

The authors state that the “hospital admission and death outcomes were considered more robust outcomes than infection” owing to “variability in testing” and a potentially “high proportion of asymptomatic infections.” The implication is that unvaccinated people were less likely to get tested when infected, suppressing the positive test rate in the unvaccinated. No evidence is provided for this claim, however, nor any attempt made to quantify the possible size of the difference.

The study was published in June but went largely unnoticed until Alex Berenson wrote about it last month. Alex also draws attention to the fact that vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization and death is much weaker than was claimed at the time. (read more)