NFL Covid-19 protocols: a glimpse into the future restrictions for all unvaccinated - and a problem for studies into vaccine effectiveness

These are the new Covid-19 protocols for NFL players. Eventually these kinds of differences will apply everywhere. 

Apart from the civil liberties issues, the fact that only unvaccinated will be routinely tested also means that data on vaccine effectiveness will be massively biased because the vast bulk of people being tested will be asymptomatic unvaccinated people. When real infection rates are low (as they are now) this bias will exaggerate vaccine effectiveness because almost all new 'cases' will be asymptomatics (i.e. unvaccinated) - most of which will be false positives.  Yet, if infection rates are high the bias could underestimate vaccine effectiveness as the proportion of symptomatics among those tested will be higher for the vaccinated. 

We raised this issue of how different testing strategies for unvaccinated compared to vaccinated compromised the big Pfizer study in Israel .......... and are still waiting for a response from The Lancet 

Links

• NFL reveals extensive restrictions for unvaccinated players in training camp COVID-19 protocols 
• Is the Pfizer vaccine as effective as claimed?