Thread by @scojw

COVID mortality, 4 ways.
1/ PHS published their weekly report, one of the datasets is ‘covid deaths’ over the last 4 weeks. What could be simpler?
The raw numbers look like this. We can see double-vaccinated is highest, and ‘Booster’ 50% lower.

2/ The raw data fails to account for the population numbers of each - so we can divide deaths by population, to get a mortality rise for each cohort.
Booster is largest population, and risk looks lower, 75% down. Unvaccinated notably lower risk than 1 or 2 dose

3/ The above doesn’t account for age, so ‘age-standardised mortality’ is estimated, the 95% confidence areas below. This hugely raises the risk of 2 doses, and collapses for ‘Boosted’. This appears an artefact of (inappropriately?) considering when someone is ‘Boosted’.

4/ Meanwhile, among the focus on how to estimate relative risk of a covid death by vaccine status….actually repiratory mortality for the period (covid plus all other respiratory deaths) is at or BELOW the normal level.
Maybe we should be prioritising other problems?

5/ So when we look overall - the ‘ASMR’ for the average Scot is around 1,100 - if we add those different COVID risks (from (3) on top, it looks like the below.
The relative size of those tiny orange slivers on top… does not look like a difference worth being Scotland’s priority.