However, does Rodolphe Thiébaut consider that there are no problematic elements to report on the methodological level? Nope : “There are always things to say regarding all the articles. Here, for example, we might wonder regarding certain elements used and which relate to countries that are less advanced in terms of health. But this is the very principle of modeling Bringing out data when you don’t have any, basing yourself on working hypotheses, refining them…”
Trying to assess the impact of vaccines on overall mortality inevitably leads to projecting ourselves into a different frame of reference, and in a certain way to proposing a different way of writing history, under a new prism. “The Real Question”notes the epidemiologist, “is really that of the hypotheses, are they viable or not?” On this point, he argues that the choices made are globally consistent and is delighted that the mathematical models used were freely shared by the authors of the study. This encourages Rodolphe Thiébaut to reuse them himself in the future, to compare it to the modeling work carried out with his colleagues.
“George Box, a famous British statistician, said that all models are wrong, but some are useful”, slips the expert. Fact, “they always offer a simplified representation of reality”. However, with this study, “even if the exact result of deaths avoided will not be strictly equal to 19 million and commas, the obvious interest is to highlight the major impact of vaccinations. Quite clearly exceeding the 10 million deaths avoided is Either way, huge.”
Note that the researchers consider their estimates potentially lower than the reality, suggesting that the benefit of vaccines in terms of mortality would be even greater. The fact that their work was limited to a period ending at the end of 2021 in any case suggests that over the first 6 months of 2022, vaccinations continued to save lives, changing the conclusions of the study. .
