Association Between BCG Policy is Significantly Confounded by Age and is Unlikely to Alter Infection or Mortality Rates

STEFAN Kirov

The copyright holder has placed this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.06.20055616 doi: medRxiv preprint between BCG vaccination and protection against viral infections seems to be within the scope of actual anti-viral vaccines (2, 3) . On the other hand, the biological rational for causal link between age and COVID19 morbidity and mortality seems a lot more straightforward; if we follow the Occam's razor we should prioritize this link over BCG vaccination. I also want to emphasize that the association observed in this work between infection rates and rubella immunization are almost certainly spurious. The arguments so far is that early childhood vaccinations might be protective, which is the opposite of our observation. Prior preclinical research(16) that was done during one of the previous coronavirus crisis shows clearly that childhood vaccinations are unlikely to drive different outcomes of COVID19 infections. This is further enhanced by the data presented in this study. I need to emphasize that I have not included a number of other potentially confounding factors such as blood pressure, public policy (mandatory travel restrictions, use of masks, etc.) or time from first infection (start of community spread). Finally, any conclusive study will need to address the disagreement between BCG policy and actual BCG vaccination rates with the first still contributing to the regression model, whereas the second did not. in the Public Domain. It is no longer restricted by copyright. Anyone can legally share, reuse, remix, or adapt this material for any purpose