Tweet it Through the Grapevine

 I continue to search diligently for data to support this claim -  'Pandemic of the Unvaccinated': CDC Chief Says 97% of US Hospitalizations Didn't Get COVID-19 Shots.   from the Sputnik News -  by Morgan Artyukhina.

The CDC Chief did say... "This is BECOMING thePandemic of the Unvaccinated"  but what about the 97% statistic about hospitalizations?????

Naturally I searched the body of this article for hyperlinks to the data. only to discover it was taken froma young recent graduate of the University of Maryland  who reported in the Baltimore Sun:  "Of the nearly 100 people who died of COVID-19 in Maryland last month, all were not vaccinated against the disease, state health officials say.  In addition, 95% of newly infected people in Maryland and 93% of those requiring hospitalization were unvaccinated, according to a tweet from Mike Ricci, spokesman fro Gov. Larry Hogan."  

So where is the 97%?????  And is this where we get acurate data .... according to a tweet????  

Now the Surgeon General is worried about the mis-information with a 22 page report casting doubt upon the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. But what about the reverse - the unsubstantiated statistics about death and hospitalizations in context of the vaccine virallly reported through various news organizations on-line publishing.   

I have searched the CDC traking database for any statistics regarding cases, hospitalizations and deaths for Covid suvivors, unvacinnated individuals, those with antibodies, and vaccinnated (by vaccine type).  I can find nothing beyond early studies of healthcare workers.  

I could find no where that the CDC Chief actually said 97% of US Hospitalizations didn't get COVID-19 shots.  And..... a young journalist decides to report a tweeted statistic of 95% with no further research.  And.... what precise reporting "nearly 100 people who died"   - was it 100 or not?  Was it 99 or 98 let's not round the numbers. And then another journalist uses the Baltimore Sun article and changes the statistic to 97%.  

What we have here is "Grapevine" tweet based reporting with editorial license in rounding.  

Addendum  1:59pm:   I have found a case of accurate and decent reporting around the statistic 97%.  Published in the Seattle Times - June 5th 2021 "The 'two societies': 97% of new COVID cases are among people who haven't gotten the shots" reported by Danny Westneat.  They actually crossreferenced cases with vaccination databases.  However there is a slight flaw in analysis since "fully vaccinated (14 days after second shot) could be a stringent criteria and it wasn't until May 15th the vaccine was available for anyone under 16 (consequently the data was not recast for the correct population age demographic). 

Addendum #2 2:44pm  Also remember - thie Seattle Times article is positive COVID-19 cases - not hospitalizations or deaths.  Nor would it (or could it) apply to asymptomatic cases.  Also could vaccinated population do more masking, social distancing, generally be more healthy (socially economically priviledged ) , and health conscious?  

Addendum #3  2:56pm   Look carefully at the prior blog and UK data.   Of the 53K "linked" positive Delta Variant Cases - 4,087 were vaccinated "fully" which is 7.69% of the positive cases (or 92.3% of new cases were not "fully vaccinated").   Yet....  there were 20 vaccinated of the 73 total deaths --- 35.6% of the deaths were vaccinated individuals.    Hmmm........ Which statistic do you think they are reporting.

Addendum #4 6:15pn   Just read a Newsweek/MSN  report stating:  " On Sunday, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said that nearly all of COVID-19 deaths - or 99.5 percent - are happening among unvaccinated people."  Where is the data for that statistic?  Once again a quote from the Surgeon General with no checking - no supporting data.  Where is the investigating journalism in that?