Fact Check: CDC classification of vaccinatin status for Covid-19 Deaths

[Bootstrap]

I'd like a fact check on this claim. Can someone provide reliable information on how vaccination status is recorded for Covid-19 deaths?

The claim: The CDC is classifying deaths in a misleading way
The implication: They are deliberately falsifying information, we can't trust the scientific consensus on vaccines

But is this claim true? Can we trust the sources that are making this kind of claim?

Mennonitemom, Josh - you have each made this claim. Do you have reliable sources to back it up?

I was looking for a place to leave some info I read today... this seems as good a place as any.... and anyone can look into this for themselves....
IF someone dies within 2 weeks of being vaccinated, (which MANY ARE) they are counted as "unvaccinated" by the cdc....

CDC counts them as “unvaccinated” until 6 weeks after the 2nd shot.

Then us unvaccinated people get blamed for every death of such a vaccinated person.

Israel reported the data accurately with a “partially vaccinated” category.

[Bootstrap]

After writing that last post, I realized that Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report is one obvious place to look for this kind of information. This article describes how vaccination status is recorded:

Two surveillance indicators that potentially can be used to monitor and describe vaccine breakthrough COVID-19 cases and severe outcomes are the percentage of vaccinated persons among cases (PVC) and an IRR between unvaccinated and vaccinated patients. PVC increases with increasing vaccination coverage or decreasing VE (1,2), complicating interpretation of this metric. IRRs are more stable, directly related to VE, and easier to communicate publicly in terms of vaccine impact (2). Most jurisdictions focus on assessing COVID-19 outcomes in fully vaccinated persons (≥14 days after completion of all recommended doses of an FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccine) and have readily implemented comparisons to not fully vaccinated persons, including persons who are partially vaccinated (<14 days since completing the primary series or did not complete the series) or unvaccinated (did not receive any COVID-19 vaccine); some jurisdictions also monitor trends in partially vaccinated persons.

This is the data behind the claim that unvaccinated people have more than 10 times the risk of death or hospitalization. As far as I can tell, they do not consider people "unvaccinated" unless they have not been vaccinated. Am I missing something?

[mennonitemom1]

I believe that if the shot basically causes your death 2 days after the vaccination, because 14 days has not gone by, you would be counted as not vaccinated.... see how they cover up all those vaccine deaths?.....
I found this about ivermectin....

In clinical use since 1981 as an oral and topical medicine for a range of parasitic infection, ivermectin is on WHO’s List of Essential Medications. Anecdotally, the standard dose of 9mg used once has been correlated with some instances of “rapid clinical resolution in severe hospitalized COVID-19 [cases].” Clinical studies are underway; while ivermectin is shown to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, but this seems to require a far higher dose than the “standard.” And this casts “doubt on the utility of this agent as an antiviral drug in COVID-19 unless very markedly higher doses are used.” This latest ivermectin update is based on an editorial/literature review in Open Heart, an open-access journal, which is “an official journal of the British Cardiovascular Society.” The piece notes that viral-replication blocking would be less useful in late-COVID-19 with cytokine storms. Yet anecdotes point to success at this later stage. So, research should consider the idea that “ivermectin is acting as an anti-inflammatory in these cases.” This motivated the editorial search for “literature on ivermectin for anti-inflammatory actions.”

[Bootstrap]

I believe that if the shot basically causes your death 2 days after the vaccination, because 14 days has not gone by, you would be counted as not vaccinated.... see how they cover up all those vaccine deaths?....

The quote in my post says how they counted various deaths. Those people are called "not fully vaccinated persons," not "unvaccinated".

And there's a table that shows how the numbers change depending on how you count them. The answer: not much. Completely unvaccinated people seem to account for most of the deaths.

https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/109533

So I don't think you are right about how these things are counted or that they are hiding anything, the data is right out there, they compute it both ways. It does not seem to indicate that the vaccine is causing deaths - or am I missing something? If so, what?

I found this about ivermectin....

You could start a thread on Ivermectin. I'd like to stay on this one subject in this thread. I would like to be able to start "Fact check" threads that simply look at the facts for or against a specific claim, then stay on the subject and gather evidence.

[Wade]

I don't care enough to search it out again but the CDC website stated that if someone dies with COVID they count it as a COVID death even if it was not the cause. Every reasonable information I have read is saying that if someone dies with COVID after being vaccinated they typical define the cause is from whatever other co-morbidity or health issue the person was facing. So we really don't have good reason to believe what you or the CDC is presenting as "facts" in sthe charts or numbers shared as much as understanding that they are manipulated numbers to project whatever adjenda or bias they support. The vaccine may even help but it doesn't gain a person's trust who is able to see through their inconsistencies and left out information to make their beliefs look bigger and better than what is outside giving ALL of the facts consistently.

[Bootstrap]

I don't care enough to search it out again but the CDC website stated that if someone dies with COVID they count it as a COVID death even if it was not the cause.

Let's have a thread for that claim:

viewtopic.php?p=135720#p135720

[Josh]

OK, Boot

In the news media we hear of two kinds of deaths: vaccinated and unvaccinated

Which type are partially-vaccinated reported as?

[Bootstrap]

In the news media we hear of ....

Sorry, but I think it's important to stay on the topic in fact checking threads. Changing the subject is such a convenient way to avoid unpleasant truth. I this thread, I am focused on what the CDC reports, not anything as broad and vague as "the news media".

One of the claims I posted in the OP was yours:

CDC counts them as “unvaccinated” until 6 weeks after the 2nd shot.

Then us unvaccinated people get blamed for every death of such a vaccinated person.

Israel reported the data accurately with a “partially vaccinated” category.

I believe that is simply false, according to CDC guidelines posted above. Do you agree? If not, why not?

[nett]

In the news media we hear of ....

Sorry, but I think it's important to stay on the topic in fact checking threads. Changing the subject is such a convenient way to avoid unpleasant truth. I this thread, I am focused on what the CDC reports, not anything as broad and vague as "the news media".

One of the claims I posted in the OP was yours:

CDC counts them as “unvaccinated” until 6 weeks after the 2nd shot.

Then us unvaccinated people get blamed for every death of such a vaccinated person.

Israel reported the data accurately with a “partially vaccinated” category.

I believe that is simply false, according to CDC guidelines posted above. Do you agree? If not, why not?

I have heard from multiple first hand reports (nurses) that they are not able to accurately track vaccination status because of electronic health record software limitations. For example, a large university hospital in CT uses Epic software. The patient EHRs will only show vaccinated if their vaccination was recorded by a hospital that uses Epic as well. Some hospitals are no longer allowing nurses to ask patients about vaccination status either (in this case I saw the email about the policy). I think vaccinated hospitalizations and death are being counted as vaccinated on a large scale because of this.

Israel and the UK have much better record keeping, their data is much more reliable at this point.

[ken_sylvania]

I'd like a fact check on this claim. Can someone provide reliable information on how vaccination status is recorded for Covid-19 deaths?

The claim: The CDC is classifying deaths in a misleading way
The implication: They are deliberately falsifying information, we can't trust the scientific consensus on vaccines

But is this claim true? Can we trust the sources that are making this kind of claim?

Mennonitemom, Josh - you have each made this claim. Do you have reliable sources to back it up?

I was looking for a place to leave some info I read today... this seems as good a place as any.... and anyone can look into this for themselves....
IF someone dies within 2 weeks of being vaccinated, (which MANY ARE) they are counted as "unvaccinated" by the cdc....

CDC counts them as “unvaccinated” until 6 weeks after the 2nd shot.

Then us unvaccinated people get blamed for every death of such a vaccinated person.

Israel reported the data accurately with a “partially vaccinated” category.

I would vote to mark the claim as "Mostly True."
Take this Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the CDC for instance.

Summary
What is already known about this topic?
The incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalization, and death is higher in unvaccinated than vaccinated persons, and the incidence rate ratios are related to vaccine effectiveness.
What is added by this report?
Across 13 U.S. jurisdictions, incidence rate ratios for hospitalization and death changed relatively little after the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant reached predominance, suggesting high, continued vaccine effectiveness against severe COVID-19. Case IRRs decreased, suggesting reduced vaccine effectiveness for prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infections.
What are the implications for public health practice?
Getting vaccinated protects against severe illness from COVID-19, including the Delta variant. Monitoring COVID-19 incidence by vaccination status might provide early signals of potential changes in vaccine effectiveness that can be confirmed through robust controlled studies.

This report summary refers to two groups - "vaccinated persons" and "unvaccinated persons."
Now let's move down to the body of the report, where we find phrases such as the following (bolded emphasis mine).

percentage of vaccinated persons among cases (PVC) and an IRR between unvaccinated and vaccinated patients

Most jurisdictions focus on assessing COVID-19 outcomes in fully vaccinated persons (≥14 days after completion of all recommended doses of an FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccine) and have readily implemented comparisons to not fully vaccinated persons, including persons who are partially vaccinated (<14 days since completing the primary series or did not complete the series) or unvaccinated (did not receive any COVID-19 vaccine); some jurisdictions also monitor trends in partially vaccinated persons.

Only some jurisdictions monitor trends among the partially vaccinated, with the remainder lumping the partially vaccinated with the unvaccinated.

Weekly age-specific incidences by vaccination status were calculated as the number of cases, hospitalizations, or deaths divided by the number of persons either fully vaccinated or not fully vaccinated (obtained by subtracting the number of fully vaccinated persons from total population estimates).

Here again the term "not fully vaccinated" is used, lumping the unvaccinated and partially vaccinated together.

And then the clincher.

The findings in this report are subject to at least five limitations. First, combining unvaccinated and partially vaccinated persons resulted in lower IRR and VE estimates.

The report does include a link to a sensitivity analysis that attempts to somewhat quantify the effect of combining these two groups. However the claim that the CDC is combining the partially vaccinated and unvaccinated persons categories is basically true.