https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/mathew-crawford-excess-deaths-defender-in-depth/
According to Crawford, what the CDC data show “is that vaccine uptake pretty much follows a health-wealth curve,” which “matters in terms of how the actuaries might have been tricked.”
However, he said, “I don’t think that they really have been tricked. I think they’re just scared to say what’s going on.”
Crawford said the data indicate a “healthy user bias,” wherein “wealth does predict health” and where “wealthier counties have lower mortality rates.” Such correlations, according to Crawford, also existed pre-COVID-19.
“You can very clearly see that the death rate mirrors median household income across the entire country,” Crawford said. “Looking at the most granular level of data from the CDC itself, the more wealth you have in a county, the less death you have in general.”
Crawford said fatalities are more highly correlated with past death rates because “in healthier counties … They’re more conscientious and they tend to hold more college degrees and they generally have more wealth.”
Yet, actuaries came up with their own data, Crawford said, indicating “vaccine effectiveness” on the basis that states with higher vaccination rates had lower mortality.”
For Crawford, there are a “couple of things wrong” with this conclusion — one being that in Northeastern states that were subsequently highly vaccinated, a disproportionately large number of COVID-19 deaths occurred early in the pandemic. As a result, there were fewer people who were “low on health” later, when the vaccines were introduced.
“Even ignoring the fact that excess death gets redefined for a few states for that reason, what we have is … a Simpson’s paradox” situation, he said.
What this is, according to Crawford, is a situation where “there is this other variable at play.” In the case of COVID-19, this additional variable was “giving more vaccines to the people who are conscientious, who have more wealth, health and education,” which “results in a trend that goes in the opposite direction than what we would expect.”
Crawford said the data “that would appear to indicate that there’s small levels of [vaccine] effectiveness” instead indicate “median household income effects.”
“The conclusion the actuaries make that the vaccines were stopping excess death is completely unwarranted, and they really should know better,” he said. “I’ve broken it down on a state level and on a county level, and I can see for absolute certain that the healthy user bias makes it look like there’s a little bit of effectiveness. But there is none.”
He added: “When I see the Society of Actuaries coming forward and saying this … I think shenanigans. I think that that has to be a canned story,” he said.
Citing existing data and insurance industry statements that indicate higher-than-average excess deaths are expected through 2026, Crawford said to blame excess deaths “on one variable [COVID-19 effects] rather than something that seems to be pushing that variable from behind, meaning the vaccines, it seems obtuse.”