Public Health Scotland has revoked its citizens’ rights to see how many COVID deaths and hospitalizations occurred in vaccinated patients, citing concerns the data will be used by “anti-vaxx campaigners.”
QUICK FACTS:
- Scotland will no longer be posting vaccination status data with their records of who’s been hospitalized and died with coronavirus, according to the Glasgow Times.
- Officials cited their unwillingness to have the data used by “anti-vaxx campaigners” to who they claim might be looking to “misrepresent” the vaccines.
- A public health watchdog group announced the change in the COVID statistical report, saying the content of the current data would be reviewed.
- Public Health Scotland called the change “a completely different method which is much more robust and that’s what we want people to focus on.”
- The Herald Scotland claims that the change came after Trump advisor claims it “demonstrates conclusively” that vaccines are not working.
- Included in their concerns about misrepresentation was data about vaccinations published by American commentator Alex Berenson as well as what the Glasgow Times called the “right wing opinion website, The Blaze.”
WHAT OFFICIALS SAID:
- “The main important point around all of the analysis is we understand whether the vaccines are working against catching it and against getting severe Covid, and that’s where the vaccine effectiveness studies come in which are a completely different methodology,” said one PHS official in a statement to The Scotsman.
- “The case rates, hospitalisation rates, the death rates are very simple statistics … What is happening is people are looking at those simple data and trying to make inferences about the vaccination, whether the vaccines work, inappropriately and sometimes wilfully.
- “There are so many caveats and they just pull certain figures out that should not be used. “What we are going to do is do a lot more on the vaccine effectiveness side and try and make people understand how effective the vaccine is.
BACKGROUND:
- Widespread concern about vaccines and mandates toward their use has circled the globe, and Canadian health researcher, Dr. Paul Alexander, who worked as a Trump administration official, advocated for mass infection and herd immunity, rather than the vaccine, according to Herald Scotland.
- The data being taken off the site reportedly showed that case rates have been higher in the double-vaccinated and, latterly, the boosted, than those without vaccinations, or just one shot.
- However, PHS claims that the data underestimates the size of the unvaccinated group and that data showing the same results coming from England and Ontario, is all adding to the misunderstanding.
