Do Covid-19 Vaccines Make the Public Safer? Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer Declines to Say

August 5, 2022 - At her media briefing yesterday, LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, declined to answer a question from a Los Angeles Times reporter regarding to what extent it is safer to be around a person who is vaccinated. Ferrer does not typically miss answering a question from the press, even if multiple questions come from one reporter.

Data from the Health Department's website on "Outcomes by Vaccination Status," clearly show that transmission among the fully boosted is higher than transmission among single-series vaccine recipients in every age group. Transmission rates among fully boosted 18-49 year olds are higher than among completely unvaccinated youths under 17 (See image).

Booster shots in 18-49 year olds create transmission rates 43-44% higher than among single-series vaccine recipients. The unvaccinated in this age group have transmission rates 53-59% higher than single-series recipients. So transmission rates for the fully boosted in this age group is significantly closer to the rate of the unvaccinated than to that of single-series vaccine recipients.

Since vaccines for Covid-19 first became widely distributed in the spring of 2021, mandates excluding the unvaccinated from venues and jobs were instituted with the stated purpose of slowing community spread of the virus. In some situations these mandates are still in force. At this point, the fully boosted are in most cases transmitting the virus at a rate similar to the unvaccinated, and in some cases at a rate higher than the unvaccinated.

This was apparently not a subject Dr. Ferrer wanted to discuss.

These are the rates of transmission per 100,000 over 30 days ending July 14, in order of rate:

Single series vaccine (12-17 yo): 752.1

Single series vaccine (65+): 958.6

Boosted (12-17): 1019.1

Single series vaccine (50-64): 1175.6

Single series vaccine (18-29): 1307.9

Single series vaccine (30-49): 1323.8

Boosted (65+): 1367.2

Boosted (50-64): 1818.4

Unvaccinated (12-17): 1864.7

Boosted (18-29): 2281.5

Boosted (30-49): 2393.1

Unvaccinated (50-64): 2554

Unvaccinated (18-29): 2769.6

Unvaccinated (30-49): 3233.3

Unvaccinated (65+): 4753.4