Watson et al debunked? Why 14 million lives saved was always an impossibility

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

Dr Ros Jones

In June 2022, Watson et al from Imperial College London published an article in the Lancet using modelling data to estimate at least 14 million lives saved by the Covid vaccines. “This estimate rose to 19·8 million (95% Crl 19·1–20·4) deaths from COVID-19 averted when we used excess deaths as an estimate of the true extent of the pandemic, representing a global reduction of 63% in total deaths (19·8 million of 31·4 million) during the first year of COVID-19 vaccination.”

Their thesis was largely based on Professor Neil Fergusson’s notorious modelling in March 2020 of likely deaths had no lockdowns been introduced. HART author Dr Clare Craig, wrote a damning take-down of their paper the following month, including these two figures, the first showing no discernible effect on the trajectory cumulative covid deaths worldwide with the arrival of the vaccines and the second showing the estimated deaths that the authors claim were saved by the vaccines.

Figure 1: Global cumulative deaths attributed to covid

Figure 2: Claim from Imperial of the total number of global deaths that would have been experienced in the absence of vaccination

Despite the lack of real world data to support Watson et al’s claims, the enormous number of lives saved has continued in the psyche of the mainstream media, the UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry, and regulatory bodies across the world ever since. Although there has more recently been an acknowledgement of serious or even fatal vaccine adverse events, these have been portrayed as very rare, and the only official narrative has been about the need for a proper compensation scheme for these unfortunate people.

Earlier this month, a new paper has critiqued Watson et al and found them seriously wanting. Writing in the Journal of Independent Medicine, Raphael Lataster has published a Metacritique of Influential Studies Purporting COVID-19 Vaccine Successes: Part 1 - Watson et al (more critiques of the claims of lives saved are to follow). Lataster highlights various methodological failures namely: (i) use of exaggerated fatality rates which thus exaggerate the potential benefits; (ii) incorrect attribution of the immediate post-vaccination period as ‘unvaccinated’ (a ‘Cheap Trick’ reported by Neil & Fenton); (iii) short reporting time frames which obscure the known rapid decay in vaccine effectiveness; (iv) use of covid deaths rather than all-cause mortality which therefore obscures any deaths caused by the vaccines themselves. He finally highlights the universal conflicts of interest. He concludes: “Watson et al has been central in shaping the dominant narrative that COVID-19 vaccines have saved tens of millions of lives worldwide. However, a closer examination reveals a web of flawed methodological assumptions, unsupported estimates, and under-discussed risks—factors that substantially undermine this conclusion.”

Then last week, Steve Kirsch published his own assessment of lives saved (or lost) using raw data from the Czech Republic analysed by a new and much simpler methodology, A novel, simple, all-cause mortality analysis method clearly shows COVID vaccines killed > saved

He has used the simple metrics of year of birth, week of vaccination if any and week of death. He has then analysed by 5-year age bands eg those born 1950-54 and then looked at the ratio of all-cause deaths in vaxxed or unvaxxed cumulatively. The figure below shows the vaccinated dying at a lower rate (ie ratio <1) for just the first 3 months but then the ratio moves above 1 for the next fifteen months from September 2021 through to December 2022.

Fig 3. 1950 death relative mortality. >1 means the vaccine is harmful. Ratio of cumulative death count in the vaxxed / unvaxxed from the start period with value=1 set at the end of the non-COVID period.

Anticipating push back on the methods used by a graduate of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with no qualification in Public Health or Epidemiology, he conducted a critique using Grok! This method has the advantage that Grok has no personal baggage to bear, such as knowing that you’ve pushed these hazardous products relentlessly and that your next grant is dependent on maintaining the narrative of millions saved.

Any comments on his methodology gratefully received and also access to any other publicly available datasets. HART members, Clare Craig, Jonathan Engler and Norman Fenton asked for similar data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) but have been repeatedly refused. I wonder why….