Beaumont Health's Child Study of Covid Hospital Admissions
Large American pediatric study failed to show benefit of covid vaccine for preventing hospital admissions for covid
This study will possibly receive more attention in the weeks or months ahead for a couple of reasons. First, it is a study of three “waves” of hospital admissions, corresponding to the alpha, delta, and omicron variants. In this respect, it shows the evolution of the covid pandemic nicely. Second, it features enough data on child vaccination status to permit some observations about the claim that covid vaccination prevents serious outcomes.
Here is the subset of data for the 4517 children who presented with covid to Detroit hospital emergency departments:
Here is the dataset of children who got admitted to hospital:
We can calculate the overall admission rate according to vaccination status:
Boosted: 8 of 17 (47% admission rate)
Fully vaccinated: 35 of 195 (18% admission rate)
Partially vaccinated: 15 of 50 (30% admission rate)
Unvaccinated: 508 out of 4255 (12% admission rate)
Vaccine efficacy for preventing admission was not terribly compelling. One might conclude (although the authors did not) that being unvaccinated could be a superior strategy for avoiding hospital admission with covid.
There is also some analysis regarding ICU admission, use of oxygen etc. The authors do not find benefit for vaccination on any of these outcomes.
Yes, an unusual choice to divide up vaccine groups in the final part of the study, and one wonders what the data would look like if this had not been done.
I was grateful that the authors decided to take a more straightforward (honest?) approach with their hospitalization analysis.
This says it all: "There was no difference in composite severe outcomes comparing unvaccinated (25.6%) and vaccinated (25.9%) (p = 1.000). Likewise, the need for ICU-level care was similar among pediatric patients regardless of vaccination status..."
That being said, I wonder whether or not the control group has, once again, been obscured. In Wayne County, about 8% of the 5-19 age group who received a first dose did not continue the shots. If this subset were included in the 'immunized' category the results would look somewhat different. In other words, the comparison should be between 0 shots and 1 or more shots. not less than 2 vs 2 or more.
It's also noteworthy that 98.3% of these pediatric patients 'presenting with Covid' had comorbidities (4440/4517). Could it be more obvious, as Tokka has pointed out, that the vast majority of these are incidental?