11/2/2021
Rare: 1) (of an event, situation, or condition) not occurring very often. "a rare genetic disorder" 2) (of a thing) not found in large numbers and consequently of interest or value. "the jellyfish tree, one of the rarest plants on earth" 3) unusually good or remarkable. "he plays with rare strength and sensitivity"
Rare is a term that has been used a lot recently in the narrative of vaccine reactions. We have all heard about a vaccine reaction or death, maybe even read a story about a vaccine reaction and in that story, you will read “extremely rare side effect”, a “rare case of blood clots”, a “rare case of myocarditis” or “he/she possibly died from the vaccine in what is an extremely rare event”. This how often can a rare event happen before you can stop calling it rare?
Rare is also a relative term. Picture this, two grandmothers discussing life over coffee complain about how rarely they see their grandkids. After talking further, the one grandmom says she see her grandkids about every two weeks. They other woman then says, “I see my grandkids at Christmas and maybe once in the summer”. Both think they rarely see their grandkids, but one sees them much more than the other.
The only way to see if rare meets your definition of rare is to put a number on it. The NIH defines a rare as condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people in the US. This definition was created by congress in the Orphan Drug Act of 1983. Let’s use this definition what is actually rare.
According to the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) as of 10/22/2021 there have been 837,593 adverse events reported to the system from the Covid vaccines. This system has been shown to under report adverse events by a large ratio. Here is a study that shows the underreporting https://digital.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/docs/publication/r18hs017045-lazarus-final-report-2011.pdf
Using the NIH definition of rare, side effects from the vaccine are not rare, but in fact common. Keep in mind, this is using the assumption that ALL of the reactions are reported to VAERS. We can from the conclusion of this study that assumption is wildly conservative.
According to Childstats.gov there are 48.9 million Americans aged (0-11). According to the World Bank there are 329.5 million Americans. This means there are 280.6 million shot eligible Americans (as of 10/22/2021). There have been 17,619 deaths from the Covid vaccines according to VAERS and as stated before, this number is wildly unreported. If you take the total number of shot eligible (as of 10/220/2021) Americans, this means that about 1 in 16,000 American’s have died from the shot and that number will only get worse as we continue to administer shots. This is not the total number of people vaccinated. This is all people that can get the shot. How many M&Ms would you eat knowing that there would be a 1 in 10,000 chance of death per M&M?
Now let’s talk rare in kids with Covid. There was a Phil Murphy (NJ Governor) campaign ad that quotes former President Trump and candidate Jack Ciattarelli. The add plays Trump’s voice saying, “If you look at children, children are almost immune from this disease”. Trump said that on 8/5/2020. Then there is NJ Gubernatorial Candidate Jack Ciattarelli saying, “Children are not vulnerable to this virus.” on 8/19/2021. This was an attack on Ciattarelli making as it seems as if he and Trump agree and are wrong about children and Covid. Both statements are in fact correct. Link to the ad.
This virus has changed over the past two years. While in recent months there have been more cases of children catching it, it is still rare for kids to have bad outcomes with this virus. Both statements by these politicians are in fact true. Trump said “almost immune”, not immune. He is saying that it is rare. Ciattarelli says kid are not vulnerable. Also true.
Let’s look at the numbers. States have different definitions of children when it comes to these statistics, some states are 0-14, some 0-17, some 0-18, and some 0-19. Link to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) data below. According to the AAP the following is true. There are 75.3 million children (0-17) in this country. Of all these kids, there have been 6.3 million cases of Covid. This mean that 8.3% of children have tested positive for Covid in the span of 19 months. Of these 6.3 million 24,073 have been hospitalized. This is 0.032% of all children in America over 20 months. There have been 584 children that have died with Covid in the United States from March 2020 to 10/21/2021. So a child in America has a 0.00077% chance of dying of Covid over a 19 month period. This translates to a 0.000489% chance of dying of Covid per year. I would say this is rare.
Looking at these numbers and comparing them to the Booster Phase 3 clinical trial data see post “Covid-19 Booster Data is Out, Not Great”. It appears as if a child has a much better chance against Covid than a fully vaccinated adult.
So why does the news media’s narrative get to say rare when a vaccine side effect happens, even though it is not rare? And why does the Murphy campaign put a hit piece out on two guys that say bad outcomes of Covid are rare in children, when they are rare in children?