Everything Wrong with Dr. Shah's Twitter Thread
13 Tweets from the ME CDC Director provide little data, confusing/misleading arguments
Last week, Dr. Shah went on a 13 Tweet rant, referencing breakthrough infections, hospitalization rates and deaths. He made several claims, all an attempt to explain why a higher number of fully vaccinated hospitalizations doesn’t indicate a lack of vaccine efficacy. Based on the Breakthrough Data produced from the ME CDC, his claims were wrong - if not completely misleading.
This tweet thread is an excellent example of how the messaging from the ME CDC Director continues to be inconsistent with the data produced by his own office.
Let’s try to untangle this web of inconsistencies. You can view the full thread here, but several of his tweets are linked in this article.
In this 1st of 13 Tweets, Dr. Shah says that there has been “confusion” regarding the percentage of those hospitalized with COVID-19 that are fully vaccinated. He claimed that 40% of the current hospitalizations were not fully vaccinated, which of course means - according to his math - that 60% of hospitalizations were full vaccinated at the time of his tweet.
It’s an odd place to start a thread that attempts to make a case for vaccine efficacy, and should be a feather in the cap of those questioning the vaccines - but he is setting this thread up to bring in a number of arguments including the “base rate effect,” age adjusted data, etc. However, it’s important to show that this first claim his misleading, if not completely inaccurate, and it’s worth explaining why.
In this first tweet, Dr. Shah shows no actual data or counts to back up this claim of 40% of hospitalizations are not fully vaccinated. He assumes everyone will just believe him. Sadly - many do just that.
If were were to check the data produced by his own office, we se that on this date, hospitalizations had declined to 132. By tracking the ME Breakthrough hospitalization numbers were updated on 05/26 and again on 06/13. During this time frame, 123 new hospitalizations were reported, including 87 (71%) that were fully vaccinated. This means that only 29% were not fully vaccinated, 11% less than the 40% claimed by Dr. Shah.
Of course, on the specific day of his tweet, it’s possible that the percentage of not fully vaccinated could be as high 40% due to recoveries, recent admissions, or deaths. From 05/26 to 06/13, a total of 46 deaths were reported by the ME CDC, including 37 (80%) that were fully vaccinated. These deaths would create fluctuation most notably the percentage of not fully vaccinated inpatients, and indeed could make Dr. Shah’s tweet correct. Dr. Shah doesn’t mention those deaths and how they impact the hospitalization percentages. It’s not hard to wonder why.
The Base Rate Effect
His 2nd tweet does ask some key questions. “Broadly, how can #COVID19 vaccines be effective when 60% of those hospitalized right now w/COVID are fully vaccinated?”
Good questions sandwiched in between poor data on one side and followed by faulty arguments on the other.
Ah. The Base Rate Effect. This has become the go-to augment across the country to explain away the increased numbers of fully vaccinated hospitalizations and deaths related to COVID-19. In short, it argues that with more people vaccinated, one should expect to see more hospitalizations and deaths of fully vaccinated people. On it’s face, this makes some good, common sense.
Here’s the problem with this approach. Dr. Shah is using the general population divided by vaccination status as the “base”. By using this “base,” the data also creates a “healthy person bias.” This way of framing the data asks the question, “how is the vaccine preforming among a general, healthy, non-infected population?”
In my non expert, non-medical researcher opinion, this data point is worth considering, but it doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of understanding how the vaccine is preforming when a fully vaccinated individual is exposed to the virus.
A better question may be, “What happens when a fully vaccinated Mainer is infected with the virus?” How does it compare to a Mainer who is not fully vaccinated? These are the questions that Dr. Falank asked back in March. She used the ME CDC’s Breakthrough Data from August through December, allowing for a broad time frame that ends before the home tests were widely available and the omicron surge. In a letter written to Dr. Shah, she demonstrated that during that timeframe, fully vaccinated Mainers were 56% more likely to he hospitalized and 60% more likely to die if infected with COVID-19.
With that said, let’s use Dr. Shah’s method with the Maine population as the "Base”.
Using the more recent breakthrough data updates and the ME CDC Vaccine Dashboard, we can look at rates of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths among the fully vaccinated and not fully vaccinated populations across the state. At this point, 78% of the Maine population is considered Fully Vaccinated. I’m choosing to use 8 weeks of recent ME CDC breakthrough data updates from April 15th to June 13th.
Figure 1
What should glaringly obvious, is the percentage of Maine Residents that are fully vaccinated is identical to the percentage of deaths (78%) associated with COVID-19 and only slightly higher than the percentage of hospitalizations (76%) from April 14 to June 13. Similarly, the not fully vaccinated are just as even.
To put it another way, the fully vaccinated make up 78% of Maine’s population and are producing 78% of COVID-19 associated deaths, and 76% of COVID-19 associated hospitalizations.
Using Dr. Shah’s own reasoning, one must conclude that this approach only points to a net-zero effect of the vaccine on COVID-19 associated hospitalizations and deaths over the past few months. It’s worth noting that 78% of the fully vaccinated population (78% of ME’s population) have also received a booster.
ME CDC “Analysis” of Breakthrough Data
Dr. Shah fills the next 6 tweets discussing the recent “analysis” of the breakthrough data done by the ME CDC. This is the only analysis that has been produced by the ME CDC relating to real world vaccine efficacy.
This was covered in more detail in a previous KeepMaineFree post but here’s a quick summary.
The ME CDC produced graphs to show “age adjusted” rates of cases, hospitalizations and deaths among fully vaccinated and not fully vaccinated Maine residents. There is no explanation to show how the age adjustment was done or definition of what “older” and “younger” means or any age ranges provided. The dates used are inconsistent with the historical Breakthrough Data updates - as in off by several months in the case of hospitalizations and deaths. These graphs are presented without any data transparency, and appear to serve only one purpose: make the breakthrough data look better for the pro-vaccine/big Pharma narrative.
The ME CDC Director uses these graphs to make several claims, including the one below.
Notice that this claim is not shown with any data to back it up. It’s just his word, nothing else. One could spend time arguing his claim, but there’s not any information provided to engage with.
There’s a few questions that must be answered before anyone should entertain these graphs as evidence of vaccine efficacy. What metric was used to come to this conclusion? What is the raw data that Dr. Shah is using to make such a claim? What time frame is he using? How has this rate changed through the variants?
Bottom Line
“They (the vaccines) keep you from getting COVID, they keep you from landing in the hospital, and they keep you alive.”
Serious question - What data is Dr. Shah reading?
The vaccines do not protect against infection or transmission, just ask Dr. Fauci.
Consider the case counts: On January 3, 2022, there had been a total of 23,425 breakthrough cases reported by the ME CDC. Since then, that number has more than quadrupled, now at 98,150. The fully vaccinated have made up 62.4% of all reported cases in Maine since January 3rd breakthrough data update.
Over the last 6 months, the fully vaccinated have made up 54.5% of all hospitalizations in Maine (887 of 1,627) and 50.6% of all reported deaths (398 of 786) associated with COVID-19.
This brings us -mercifully- to the the last of 13 tweets from the Caregiver of the Year.
The ‘data’ presented in the twitter thread from the ME CDC Director is not compelling because it’s not data. None of Dr. Shah’s claims in this thread are presented with any sources, metrics or raw data. None.
A brief analysis of the Breakthrough Data provided by ME CDC does not give any indication that the vaccines are ‘effective’ at anywhere close to the level described by health authorities over the last 12 months.
This data is provided each week on the ME CDC’s website. It should be a regular part of any reporting from Maine media outlets. It’s not hard to track. I am not a medical researcher or an expert in this field. Just a guy with a google sheet.
This Twitter thread is just one more example of the lack of transparency and poor presentation of data provided by the ME CDC. The people of Maine deserve more from the leaders that are paid with their tax dollars.
Live not by lies. Seek the Truth.
Thank you for your hard work. Most Mainers believe everything he says and do not understand how he spins the data.
Thank you for this. I have tried to keep track, and sort through the data, but the way they have it laid out on the cdc website it is impossible without a spreadsheet. The real numbers are not what they are reporting.