Wealth variables are a workable proxy for (2) and (3) at least in the US. I suspect this is because wealth correlates to something else and that something else is the better proxy for pretty much all life outcomes, health included. As far as I know, I've never seen a public health or science publication on vaccine efficacy which makes adjustments for the health/wealth correlation. Once you notice it, you start to notice a pattern of how the gap is used to manipulate results on health interventions, e.g., where trial sites are chosen, which populations are recruited, what is controlled for, etc.
One interesting thing I remember from 2021 which hits on this topic was some backwards looking efficacy numbers for the early injection campaign. One example I remember provides evidence for your selection bias hunch; the injections seemingly reduced mortality rates for things outside of covid19 or related illness. The report takes number from the CDC October VSD report. Look at the standardized mortality rate at the end of the report. Look at the relative mortality risk by age group. Wow, it's 60-70% effective at preventing non-Covid mortality! This thing is a wonderdrug!
Or there is something else which explains this obvious nonsense. When you look up total mortality for these age groups, you find car accidents, suicides, and homicides, account for approx. 80% of all mortality in these younger groups. In order to accept these at face value, you would have to believe covid injections are at least ~25-30% effective at preventing motorcycle accidents, suicide, and being shot by others.
additionally, you would also need to account if there were different treatment protocols for injected and uninjected, e.g., in the US, people without the injection were more likely to receive remdeathivir when looking at comparison numbers among a wide variety of other issues, one of which you've hit on
total mortality is heavily correlated with covid vaccine rollouts to the point where you can tell when mass campaigns began at different times in different countries across the world by looking at their mortality and covid numbers
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Notes -
Wealth variables are a workable proxy for (2) and (3) at least in the US. I suspect this is because wealth correlates to something else and that something else is the better proxy for pretty much all life outcomes, health included. As far as I know, I've never seen a public health or science publication on vaccine efficacy which makes adjustments for the health/wealth correlation. Once you notice it, you start to notice a pattern of how the gap is used to manipulate results on health interventions, e.g., where trial sites are chosen, which populations are recruited, what is controlled for, etc.
One interesting thing I remember from 2021 which hits on this topic was some backwards looking efficacy numbers for the early injection campaign. One example I remember provides evidence for your selection bias hunch; the injections seemingly reduced mortality rates for things outside of covid19 or related illness. The report takes number from the CDC October VSD report. Look at the standardized mortality rate at the end of the report. Look at the relative mortality risk by age group. Wow, it's 60-70% effective at preventing non-Covid mortality! This thing is a wonderdrug!
Or there is something else which explains this obvious nonsense. When you look up total mortality for these age groups, you find car accidents, suicides, and homicides, account for approx. 80% of all mortality in these younger groups. In order to accept these at face value, you would have to believe covid injections are at least ~25-30% effective at preventing motorcycle accidents, suicide, and being shot by others.
additionally, you would also need to account if there were different treatment protocols for injected and uninjected, e.g., in the US, people without the injection were more likely to receive remdeathivir when looking at comparison numbers among a wide variety of other issues, one of which you've hit on
total mortality is heavily correlated with covid vaccine rollouts to the point where you can tell when mass campaigns began at different times in different countries across the world by looking at their mortality and covid numbers
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