That is disturbing. It suggests that the vaccine is only really effective among precisely the people who need it least.
That said, I'm not sold on it actually making the 40-79 y.o. population more likely (as opposed to equally-likely) from these numbers. If you include all age ranges, you'd see a negative correlation between vaccines and COVID cases, and if you include only the 40-79 range, you risk cherry-picking.
My knowledge of statistics is sadly not sophisticated enough to allow me to correct for those problems and test the hypothesis.
Re: PHE bulletin 22
That said, I'm not sold on it actually making the 40-79 y.o. population more likely (as opposed to equally-likely) from these numbers. If you include all age ranges, you'd see a negative correlation between vaccines and COVID cases, and if you include only the 40-79 range, you risk cherry-picking.
My knowledge of statistics is sadly not sophisticated enough to allow me to correct for those problems and test the hypothesis.