2023-10-30 07:33:00
Distortions or false reports continue to circulate on social media.
A video montage is currently being widely shared, according to which the effectiveness of the vaccination has been steadily decreasing, according to successive headlines in newspapers. The video has been in circulation for some time, but was recently distributed with a huge reach by Elon Musk on his platform X (formerly Twitter).
Assessment: The representation suggested by the newspaper headlines used in the video is misleading. The headings are chronologically incorrect and some “real life” studies are compared with clinical studies, which makes little scientific sense.
Review: A total of 111 headlines and quotes are accompanied by dramatic music in the video. Starting with a claimed 100 percent effectiveness of the vaccination, the percentage falls continuously to 85 percent, then 50 percent and 39 percent, up to the question of whether the vaccination makes sense at all. The headlines with the least effectiveness come from early on in the vaccination development process.
Distortion of chronology
The distortion of the chronology can already be seen from the example of the first few headlines. The first excerpt, “AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine 100% effective in preventing deaths and hospitalizations: US study” is from the March 2021 study. The next headline, this time from the Fox News website, appeared in February 2021. The next screenshot is from September 2020, before vaccines were approved: “Past vaccine disasters show why rushing to deploy a coronavirus vaccine would be ‘colossally stupid.’ “.
All screenshots are from between September 2020 and October 2021, i.e. from the phase in which the vaccination moved from the development stage to approval for human use and was used. However, one report comes from 2011 and is regarding a different vaccination, namely one once morest pneumonia.
Studies are not comparable with each other
The studies listed relate to different types of vaccinations, different corona variants as well as live studies and clinical studies. The latter in particular are poorly suited for comparison because the general conditions and the test subjects as well as the development status of the vaccine are fundamentally different.
The first heading mentioned above refers to a so-called phase III study of the AstraZeneca vaccine, i.e. the last stage of a clinical study before it goes on the market. A second message later in the video refers to a “real life” study by the US CDC. In studies that do not take place in a clinical context, there are often more diverse participants with previous illnesses and less controllable conditions. For this reason, divergent results may arise.
Vaccination effectiveness once morest infection was unexpected
The vaccination was not initially developed with the hope of preventing the chance of infection. The main aim was to prevent deaths and, in the best case, severe disease. The study results, which were published by Pfizer CEO Ugur Sahin in February 2021, were all the more surprising in a BILD article mentioned. According to this, there was a 92% decrease in positive PCR tests following the vaccination. That would have meant that the vaccination might even protect a large proportion of people from infection at the time.
The fact that the BILD newspaper published this surprising news with “Vaccinated people are no longer contagious!” titled, has been used by vaccination critics over the last few years to show that the vaccination apparently cannot keep the promises made. In fact, the effectiveness of asymptomatic and mild infections decreased with time and the various mutations of the virus continuously. However, this video is not a meaningful overview of this process and uses dramaturgical tricks to put the vaccination in a bad light.
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