Ontario's Health Minister Christine Elliot - Playing politics with people's health

Christine Elliot has degrees in history and law and is the current health minister for the province of Ontario.  She's also a carerr politician which means her greatest understanding of science is of the political variety, not the medical kind.

Politics is about talking points, about framing a narrative.  And the narrative of the covid vaccines is that they're highly effective.  That's not science, it's a sales pitch.  Science is about evidence and data, and it doesn't care about the talking points.  And all the data and evidence is pointing to one undeniable truth about the covid vaccines, they are highly ineffective.  

So what does a politician do when the data and the facts contradict the messaging?  You manipulate the way the data is presented, you put lipstick on the pig.  And Christine Elliot does it every single day via her official twitter account in reporting the Covid case numbers and data.  

On Friday December 10th Ontario reported 1,453 new cases of covid.  Of that number 1,357 had a known vaccination status (96 unknown).  There were 718 cases among the fully vaccinated, which is 52.9% of the cases with a known vaccination status.  There were 26 cases in pople who are partially vaccinated, 1.9%.  The unvaccinated total was 613 which is 45%.  

The total number of tests conducted was 39,941 for this day.  What isn't reported is the breakdown of those tests in terms of vaccination status.  While it is reported that over 87% of Ontarians aged twelve and up are fully vaccinated, that doesn't mean that 87% of the people being tested are fully vaccinated obviously.  

It is the unvaccinated who are required to submit to frequent testing, not the fully vaccinated.  I know a university student who has to show proof of a negative test every 72 hours in order to attend classes.  Zack lives in residence, and when a fully vaccinated fellow resident came down with Covid he had to submit to an additional test.  Even though the test came negative he was required to quarantine for ten days, while fully vaccinated residents who tested negative were not.  

Because the province refuses to release positivity rates based on vaccination status one is left to speculate.  If the positivity rate was in fact higher among the unvaccinated than the vaccinated, there is no doubt in my mind that the data would be released, because it would bolster the message that the vaccines are effective.  Simple brain dead logic dictates that most of the testing is being done on the two to three million Ontarians who have not gotten vaccinated and are required to submit to regular testing in order to work or go to school like my young friend Zack.  

So going back to Friday's reported numbers, 1,453 new cases of which 1,357 had a known vaccination status.  Of the total cases 96 had an unknown status which is 6.7% of the total number of cases.  51.2% of the total cases were either fully or partially vaccinated, and just 613 or 42% were completely unvaccinated.  

So if you're Christine Elliot and charged with framing a false narrative that the vaccines work, how do you present these numbers?  

First you don't divulge the positivity rate based on vaccination status.  You cite the overall vaccination rate in the province and hope that people are dumb enough to think this is reflective of the people actually being tested.  You only tweet out the number of fully vaccinated cases while lumping the unvaccinated in with those who've had one shot or an unknown status while emphasizing how many people have had the shots.  

Here's how she fudged the numbers back on December 7th, 2021.  

Individuals who are not fully vaccinated represent 23.3% of Ontario’s total population & amount to 450 of Ontario's 928 new reported cases. 77 cases are in individuals with an unknown vaccination status.

https://twitter.com/celliottability/status/1468237424409169924

And you do the same thing with the hospitalization numbers. Ontario is reporting that there are 309 pateints currently in hospital who have tested positive for Covid.  Of that number just 103 or a third are reported as being unvaccinated.  Does that mean the remaining 206 are either fully or partially vaccinated?  Not necessarily, we don't have all the data.  There are actually 120 patients in Ontario hospitals who have an unreported vaccine status.  

How is it possible for someone to be admitted to a hospital in Ontario with their vaccination status uknown?  If it were a couple or even a dozen, okay...mistakes happen, human error is real.  But 120?!?!  I half jokingly wonder if there are 120 heatlh card eating dogs out there somewhere.

But having 120 people with unknown status helps paint a picture that makes it look like the vaccinations might be working, more lipstick and rouge on the ugly pig that is reality.  Ontario's health minister frames it beautifully, she should have a dedicated chapter in the book titled:  How To Lie With Statistics:  

309 people are hospitalized with #COVID19. 234 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 75 are fully vaccinated.

https://twitter.com/celliottability/status/1469325184175853572

By lumping in the unvaccinated with the partially vaccinated and the 120 people whose dogs ate their health cards it makes it "seem" like most of the hospital cases are unvaccinated and that the crappy vaccines are working maybe a little.  

There is an alternative of course, and that would be to publish all the data and provide an accurate picture.  Which is exactly why Ontarians should not expect it, when truth contradicts the political messaging it's the truth that gets tossed in the waste bin.