Dori: Local health stats show unvaxxed kids less likely to have COVID than vaccinated youth

Just last night, listener Sally gave me a link to a King County Department of Health report about COVID cases involving various age groups.

I wallowed for more than three hours in it, slogging through statistics from the last 30 days. This report broke age groups into three categories: boosted – which means you have two shots and at least one booster; fully vaccinated – which covers people with just two shots; and not fully vaccinated – people with one or no shots.

What’s most notable is among children.

Using figures based on every 100,000 people in King County, if you have a 5- to 11-year-old and they are fully vaccinated, they are 46% more likely to catch or have COVID than unvaccinated 5- to 11-year-olds.

What about local 12- to 15-year-olds? They’re the youngest age group eligible for the booster. According to this same data, if your child is 12 to 15 and boosted, they are 16 percent more likely to get COVID compared to unvaccinated kids their same age.

For 16- and 17-year-olds? They’re 14 percent more likely to get COVID. This report appears to show that for every age range, children who are vaccinated and potentially boosted are more likely to get COVID than unvaccinated children.

Why does this matter?

Because for months and months, health officials have been telling us that we have to vaccinate children. Vaccinate them all, they tell us. In fact, just this week, King County Health Department’s “Ask Miss Rona” blog was giving parents advice on how early they could arrange a booster for their kid.

Even now, officials are threatening to bring back mask mandates, too. Last week, King County said they may bring back the mask mandates. Some schools around the country – including San Diego schools – are bringing back the mask mandate.

It’s clear that these King County COVID figures and statistics are complex. That’s why we twice invited health department officials to come on The Dori Monson Show and give us more context. They declined to join Tuesday’s show.

We repeat: if there is anything we are missing, the invitation to come on the show stands.

Meanwhile, here is what DOH emailed to us Tuesday:

• differences in testing behavior between vaccinated, boosted, and not fully vaccinated individuals and the increasingly common use of at-home tests which are not typically reported/included in our data dashboard at this time in the pandemic; (for ex., people who are fully vaccinated and boosted may be more likely to frequently test for COVID).
• In turn, people who remain unvaccinated/unboosted are more likely at this point to have been previously infected with COVID-19 and therefore have some natural protection against.

That response suggests that the methodology produces faulty data. If that’s the case, why would they use the same (faulty) methodology to claim that “not fully vaccinated” people are 10 times more likely to die than the boosted?

And when they say their data may be faulty because those previously infected with COVID have “natural protection against” it, why are they still firing county workers and contractors for being unvaccinated?

This whole thing just keeps getting weirder and weirder – and we will continue to follow it.

Listen to Dori Monson weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.