Ed Conway Profile picture
Jul 27, 2021 13 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Here’s a story about a #COVID19 datapoint that looks very scary, but turns out to be quite reassuring.
The statistic is buried in a recent @PHE_uk release.
I’ve ringed it here.
It’s the no of double-jabbed people who’ve died with Delta variant assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
More vaccinated people are dying w/ the Delta variant of #COVID19 than unvaccinated.
Indeed, look at those aged over-50 and the proportion is even higher:
279 vaccinated people dying vs 131 unvaccinated.
More than double.
Scary, right? Well not necessarily…
Let’s run through it
There are two things to bear in mind here.
First, the vaccines are not 100% effective. They reduce your likelihood of dying of the disease. But even after vaccination some age groups are still relatively vulnerable. @d_spiegel explained this well here theguardian.com/theobserver/co…
Here’s a useful @Johnnmurdoch chart illustrating this (I’ve done a similar one for @skynews tonight).
Post-vax, a 90 year old faces similar risk as an unvaxxed 60yo. Same thing for an 80yo: after being jabbed, similar risk profile to an unjabbed 50yo.
Risk reduced. Not eliminated
The second thing to bear in mind is that the vast majority of over 50s in the UK - the age group most likely to face these higher mortality levels - are vaccinated. About 91% at present. And, over the period that PHE data covers, around 89% had at least one jab…
Now, back to the figs from that PHE dataset - the one that shows the majority of hospitalisations and deaths among over-50s were vaccinated. First thing to do is to compare the case numbers with the hospitalisations.
Like this. Notice anything?
That’s right: the dark blue bit of the bottom bar - the hospitalisations - is smaller than in the top bar - all the cases.
To put it another way, consider the proportion of Delta cases among over-50s that turn into hospitalisations:
3.5% among vaccinated
8.4% among unvaccinated
In other words, the hospitalisation-per-case ratio for those over-50s who are unvaccinated is 2.4 times higher than for those who have had one or more jab.
So they ARE effective.
Yet, and this is the crucial bit, the NUMBER of vaxxed people hospitalised is nonetheless higher
Similar thing for the death figures.
Remember those numbers above👆: 279 vaccinated people dying, vs 131 unvaccinated.
How do they look when we put them into the same kind of context…?
Compare the blue/red proportions in the bars
Of those vaccinated over-50s who caught Delta, 2% died.
But of those unvaccinated over-50s who caught Delta, 5.6% died.
That’s a significant difference, yet is only really apparent when you compare cases with deaths.
Looking at deaths alone is misleading.
Indeed, with 2.8 times more deaths per case among the unvaccinated portion of cases, you’re talking about high levels of vaccine effectiveness. How high? Perhaps 70-80%, but I’d be wary of putting too much weight on this dataset as I’m not sure it’s representative of the pop’n
It’s a reminder of something we’ve often encountered throughout #COVID19. CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING.
As populations become mostly vaccinated, simple numbers of hospitalisations/deaths will be dominated by the vaccinated.
It doesn’t mean the vaccines aren’t working as expected
Why are so many of those being hospitalised and dying of #COVID19 in the UK vaccinated? Here's a short video breaking down the numbers

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More from @EdConwaySky

Mar 27
🚨
The Chinese owners of British Steel say they are now considering shutting their blast furnaces and end steelmaking at Scunthorpe in early June - only a few months away.
It would mean an end of virgin steelmaking in the country that invented it during the industrial revolution
British Steel say the main question now is timing: whether the operations will close in June, in September or later.
It says tariffs are one of the reasons the blast furnaces are "no longer financially sustainable".
Press release 👇 Image
The news means @jreynoldsMP faces two interlocking crises in the coming months:
1. The imposition of US tariffs on an ever growing segment of British exports
2. The end of virgin steelmaking (the UK would be the first G7 country to face this watershed moment).
This is big stuff
Read 5 tweets
Mar 25
Donald Trump just announced 25% tariffs on anyone importing oil from Venezuela.
This is odd.
Because the country importing the most crude from Venezuela is... the US.
Capital Economics chart of Ven oil exports by Capital Economics via @rbrtrmstrng
But it raises a bigger point
🧵 Image
Why does the US import so much oil from Venezuela?
Mainly for the same reason it imports so much oil from Canada.
And no it's not just because they're close.
It's because most US refineries are set up to refine the kind of oil they have in Venezuela and Canada.
To understand this it helps to recall that crude oil is actually a broad term. There are LOTS of different varieties of crude - a function of the geology of where the oil formed and the organic ingredients that went into it millions of years ago.
It's called "crude" for a reason
Read 14 tweets
Mar 23
🚨
Here's a thread about ALUMINIUM.
Why this commonplace metal is actually pretty extraordinary.
How the process of making it is a modern miracle...
... which also teaches you some profound lessons about the trade war being waged by Donald Trump. And why it might be doomed.
🧵
Aluminium is totally amazing.
It's strong but also very light, as metals go.
Essentially rust proof, highly electrically conductive. It is one of the foundations of modern civilisation.
No aluminium: no planes, no electricity grids.
A very different world. Image
Yet, commonplace as it is today, up until the 19th century no one had even set eyes on aluminium. Unlike most other major metals we didn't work out how to refine it until surprisingly recently.
The upshot is it used to be VERY precious. More than gold!
Read 36 tweets
Mar 21
🚨TARIFFS🚨
Here's a story that tells you lots about the reality of tariffs both for those paying them & those hoping to benefit from them.
A story of ships, storms, bad luck and bad policy.
It begins a week and a bit ago, with a man frantically refreshing his web browser...
🧵
That man is Liam Bates.
He runs the UK unit of a steel company called Marcegaglia. They make stainless steel - one of the most important varieties of this important alloy. The method of making it was invented in Sheffield. And this company traces its DNA back to that invention. Image
Watching the process is TOTALLY amazing.
They tip a massive amount of scrap: old car parts, sinks etc, into a kind of cauldron and then lower big glowing electrodes into it.
Then flip the switch.
⚡️Cue a massive thunder sound as a controlled lightning storm erupts inside it.
Read 15 tweets
Feb 24
🧵Three years ago, when Russia invaded Ukraine, EU, UK and other nations vowed to wage economic war, via the toughest sanctions in history.
So... how's that going?
We've spent months documenting what ACTUALLY happened. Here's a thread of threads on the REAL story on sanctions...
1. Flows of dual use items, including radar parts, drone components and other parts used by Russia to kill Ukrainians, carried on from the UK and Europe to Russia, via the backdoor (eg the Caucasus & Central Asia)
2. Of all the goods sent by the UK to Russian neighbours, few were as significant as luxury cars.
Having sanctioned Russia (the idea being to starve Putin's cronies of luxuries) Britain (and Europe more widely) began sending those sanctioned cars in via the backdoor instead
Read 9 tweets
Feb 16
If the main thing the US really wants out of a deal with Ukraine is "50% of its rare earth minerals" then I'm surprised this can't be wrapped up pretty quickly.
Why? Because Ukraine doesn't HAVE many rare earth resources.
Really. As far as anyone knows it's got barely any... Image
Yes, Ukraine has lots of coal and iron and manganese.
It also has some potential sizeable reserves of stuff like titanium, graphite and lithium. Not to mention some promising shale gas.
But of the 109 deposits identified by KSE only 3 are rare earth elements Image
Now in one respect I'm making a pedantic point: a lot of people say "rare earth elements" when they actually mean "critical minerals".
The two aren't the same thing.
Rare earth elements are a v specific bit of the periodic table: actually they're NOT all that rare.
More on them👇
Read 7 tweets

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