Is Dr. Shah Obfuscating the truth or just really bad at his job?
ME CDC's COVID-19 Vax Breakthrough Data points to inept leadership or intentionally misleading the people of Maine
Over the last year, KMF has reported weekly on ME CDC’s COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Data. This data has consistently demonstrated that the mass majority of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in Maine are fully vaccinated. Since March 4, 2022, 73% of cases, hospitalizations and deaths have been Mainers who have received at least the primary series of COVID-19 vaccine, said to reduce serious illness and death.
This data first appeared on the Maine CDC’s website on August 6, 2021. Since then, KMF has tracked the data each week, logging and analyzing the data showing weekly updates. These weekly updates provide vital information for demonstrating vaccine efficacy - or the lack there of. Yet the ME CDC and local media refuse to provide analyzation of this data, further demonstrating a severe lack of transparency from Dr. Shah and the ME CDC.
Below are a few observations of how the ME CDC is either poorly executing their responsibilities or outright obfuscating data from the people of Maine.
Presenting Misleading Data
The ME CDC’s Breakthrough data is clear, however one must track it weekly in order to understand it. Dr. Shah and ME CDC have organized the data in such a way as to make any data analysis difficult. Earlier in the year, Dr. Shah consistently leaned on this format to attempt to demonstrate vaccine efficacy. Unfortunately, local media refused to ask necessary questions or report the breakthrough data in a way that showed any analysis.
The data from the ME CDC is updated weekly, but organized in a cumulative format, showing all cases, hospitalizations and deaths since the vaccine was available compared to breakthrough cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Here’s what the data looks like, showing the most recent update. You can view the live data on the ME CDC’s data page.
These categories are shown without start dates.
A curious choice for an office that focuses on data presentation for public view. This format first appeared on the ME CDC’s website in August of 2021. However, it came preloaded with cases, hospitalizations and deaths. No doubt, this was done to show the “rarity” breakthrough cases, hospitalization and deaths.
The categories are essentially divided into 2 groups: “Breakthrough” and “Since First Date Maine Residents could be fully vaccinated,” or “total.” The “total” being shown as a baseline for understanding the how prevalent a COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough case, hospitalization or death is among all cases, hospitalizations and deaths associated with COVID-19.
This begs the questions - when could Mainers first become “fully vaccinated”?
Using the total deaths number, we can count backwards and find a start date for the total category.
On August 13, 2021 - the date of the breakthrough data update - there had been a total of 904 total deaths associated with COVID-19. If we subtract the “deaths since first date Maine residents could be fully vaccinated” number of 237 from the total 904 deaths, we come to 667.
According to ME CDC Data, this puts the “first date Maine residents could be fully vaccinated” on February 24, 2021.
Governor Mills announced the “Aged based COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout” on February 26th, 2022, allowing older residents priority access to the shots. At the time, only 8.23% of Maine’s population were fully vaccinated, according to the official announcement from Governor Mills.
By the time the ME CDC produced the Vaccine Breakthrough Data in August 2021, 61% of Mainers were considered fully vaccinated.
When the ME CDC first produced Breakthrough Cases, Hospitalizations and Deaths in August of 2021, they compared it to a baseline that included cases hospitalizations and deaths as far back as February of 2021.
By presenting the Breakthrough Data in this way, COVID-19 Breakthrough cases, hospitalizations and deaths naturally appear less frequent, obfuscating the reality of the prevalence of Breakthrough Cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
This presentation data especially beneficial to Governor Mills and Dr. Shah in October of 2021 when the COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Healthcare Workers went into effect. From 9/24/21 to 10/29/21, ME CDC Breakthrough Data Updates showed that 42% of hospitalizations (143 of 343) and 47% of deaths (72 of 153) were fully vaccinated (sources: ME CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Data Updates, 9/24/21 and 10/29/21). The only way to demonstrate this data is through independent tracking. The ME CDC has consistently neglected to provide context for the weekly data updates, and the local media was too lazy to ask.
“Age Adjusted” Graphs
In May of this year, ME CDC updated the Breakthrough Data format by adding an “age adjusted” graph. Here’s what it looks like today.
This is presented before the raw numbers. The orange line is the "not fully vaccinated” and the blue line represents the “fully vaccinated.” The graph above shows cases, hospitalizations and deaths among fully vaccinated Mainers effectively as a flat line, hovering above zero from around March to today.
The ME CDC Graph is presented as “age-adjusted rates.” But what does this mean?
The explanation at the bottom of the graphs give us a few words, but virtually no detail.
According to the ME CDC’s explanation, the age compositions of the vaccinated and the not fully vaccinated are “different” in that the unvaccinated population is “younger” and the vaccinated population is “older.” These ambiguous terms allow for another later of obfuscation. There are no definitions provided for what “different,” “younger” or “older.” ME CDC neglects to provide any age ranges for the general population or the the actual cases, hospitalizations or deaths.
Dr. Shah shed some light on this confusing process back in June in a 13 tweet thread.
The ME CDC graphs are showing the raw numbers adjusted by age of the population. Dr. Shah and the ME CDC neglects (again) to share details about how the adjustment was made - again obfuscating the actual data. What age ranges were used? Did ME CDC analysts omit certain age ranges? How was this determined?
The ME CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard gives us some clue as to how this adjustment may have been done. Only 56% of Mainers 6 months old to 30 years of age are considered fully vaccinated. The unvaccinated in this age bracket make up some 244,600 unvaccinated Mainers. As the ages go lower, the margins get wider. Of children under 6 months to 11, 70% are not fully vaccinated.
This age group is the least at risk of severe illness and death of COVID-19. Mainers under 30 make up 36% of all cases since the beginning of the pandemic - the largest portion of cases in any age group. They also make up the lowest number of deaths associated with COVID-19, with only 17 of the 2,779 reported deaths in the state (ME CDC COVID-19 Data).
In contrast, we know that the majority of deaths associated with COVID-19 are from a much older population. More than 72% on all deaths since the start of the pandemic are older than 70 years of age (ME CDC COVID-19 Data).
The “age adjusted” graph is adjusting actual breakthrough data through an adjusted age groups of the population. The consequences of this create the opportunity for further - you guessed it - obfuscation.
If an unvaccinated Mainer dies of COVID-19 of any age - but most likely older than 70 - that will show up within the unvaccinated “age adjusted population rate.” It will appear to the viewer that the younger unvaccinated are more likely to die, even if the actual death of the unvaccinated person is 75 years old.
By contrast, the flatline shown the above graphs for the vaccinated show essential no movement at all.
Below is what a week by week tracking of ME CDC reported deaths by vaccine status looks like since March of 2021. The contrast to the “age adjusted” graph is stark.
What the ME CDC doesn’t want you to know.
So how does the “age adjusted graph” compare to the actual ME CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough data?
Since March 4, 2022, the ME CDC Breakthrough data has demonstrated that nearly 3 out 4 (73%) COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations and Deaths were fully vaccinated Mainers (Sources: ME CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Data Updates, 03/04/22 and 12/26/22). ME CDC’s COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard shows that 76% of Mainers are considered fully vaccinated and of them, 90% have received at least 1 booster.
The actual data clearly demonstrates severe lack of vaccine efficacy among Mainers. Yet the ME CDC and Dr. Shah have covered this fact with layers of confusing graphs and lazy data presentation. This is either inept leadership and extremely poor data collection or an intentional attempt to confuse and hide this vital data from the people of Maine. If indeed it is the latter, Dr. Shah and the ME CDC have used Maine tax dollars to take incredibly complex steps to intentionally obfuscate the reality of their own COVID-19 Breakthrough Data and hide it from the people of Maine.
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Live not by lies. Seek the Truth.
Great Analysis. Thank you once again for doing the work Chris Costa and the mainstream news outlets refuse to do while posing as the 4th Branch of Government. Considering the government is blatantly corrupt, I suppose being the 4th Branch makes sense if you consider them a captured industry.
As for the question of intent, my observations over the past two years lead me to assume there were/are coordinated, top down, efforts intending to confuse and misinform a intentionally frightened public. As transparent as a brick wall when it comes to data and details of reporting methods. FOAAs have gone unanswered and public inquires have been ignored almost entirely.
Keep up the good work. Live not by lies.