This is a figure that comes up, a little different, with each new wave of the Covid-19 epidemic. This time it would be “63%”, according to (among others) Philippe de Villiers, guest of CNews on Sunday December 19. On the set, he says: “63% of the dead are vaccinated, and 37% of the unvaccinated.” He quotes data from a study by the Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES) published the day before. According to him, if 63% of deaths from Covid-19 in hospital are vaccinated people, it is because the vaccine is not effective.
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan also uses this ratio, on Twitter, Wednesday, December 22, to denounce the government’s policy: “Enough of the government’s lies in order to have the all-vaccine applied at all costs to the French population and to children.” So, true or fake?
Philippe de Villiers was able to find a figure close to the one he puts forward, in the Drees study. At the very beginning of the 20-page document, we can read: “Between November 8 and December 5, 2021, the 9% of unvaccinated people in the French population aged 20 and over represent 25% of positive PCR tests in symptomatic people, 41% of conventional hospital admissions for which a PCR positive was identified, 52% of admissions to critical care and 38% of deaths. “ Philippe De Villiers therefore retained this last figure and calculated that the remaining 62% had died while they were vaccinated. In detail, a table (page 6) gives 3% of “partially vaccinated”, 53% with a “complete vaccination” and 6% with “complete vaccination and booster”. The addition gives 62%.
Should we conclude that there is a greater risk of succumbing to Covid-19 when one is vaccinated? No. As the Drees study explains, this is a statistical bias due to a strong disparity between the vaccinated population, largely in the majority in the entire French adult population, and the unvaccinated population.
“Doctors, when we tell them that, they answer: ‘it’s normal, it’s a question of statistics'”, was carried away Philippe De Villiers, on CNews. Doctors, or rather statisticians, are right. Given that the population is predominantly vaccinated, statistically, the vaccinated are over-represented compared to the unvaccinated if we do not relate the figures to a comparable population size.
La Drees therefore attempted to correct this bias, recalling that on December 23, 2021, 91% of the French population over the age of 20 received at least one dose and 9% received none. To make the numbers comparable, the Drees reported each of these rates to a population of one million people. We see that the deaths of Covid-19 in hospital are mainly those who have not been vaccinated. As shown in the lower part of the table below, from the same study, with a comparable population size: 141 unvaccinated people died from Covid-19 between November 8 and December 5, compared to 45 among partially vaccinated people. , 23 among those who received a full vaccination (having received two doses of the vaccine) and 19 among those who received a booster dose. In total, therefore 87 people who received at least one dose of vaccine and 141 who were not vaccinated at all.
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Contacted by franceinfo, the Drees deplores a “Completely misinterpretation of the study”. “The day when 100% of the population will be vaccinated, as a vaccine is never 100% effective, we will have 100% of the deaths. That does not mean that the vaccine is not effective”, summarizes the statistics service.
However, the study specifies from its first page that there is only “9% of unvaccinated people in the French population aged 20 and over”. If the vaccine was not statistically effective, the unvaccinated should not account for more than 9% of deaths. However, they represent “38% of deaths”, as well as “41% of admissions to conventional hospitalization” and “52% of admissions to critical care”. This allows the Drees to conclude and repeat that “Unvaccinated people are clearly over-represented, compared to their share in the general population, among those tested positive by PCR for Covid-19, even more than among those tested. Their over-representation is even greater among hospitalized people and also among those deceased “. And therefore that the vaccination is effective.