Less effective vaccines? The rise in the number of injuries does not tell the whole story

The Corona virus did not go away in a few weeks. The number of injuries is increasing and so is the number of hospital admissions. The pressure on health care is growing. On Friday, the VieCuri Hospital in Venlo . was expanded Take care of him Because of the “massive influx of corona patients”, the “largest part” has not been vaccinated.

A little further in Limburg, at the Maastricht University Medical Center (MUMC), it is also busy. But on average, eight out of ten patients with COVID-19 admitted to having been vaccinated, as it turned out this week. Being disturbing messages Which leads to questions about vaccine protection. Is it dropping faster than expected?

There’s more going on in Maastricht, as MUMC explains on its website: “It’s about a snapshot of a small group of patients in the normal corona department, so not the IC department.” In the intensive care unit, according to the site, in addition to people who did not want to be vaccinated, there are many people who have problems with their immune systems. Sometimes the vaccine doesn’t work, and sometimes they don’t. Altogether, 90 percent are unvaccinated.

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According to the hospital, the fact that many vaccinated people ended up in the nursing ward has something to do with the age of the patients admitted. Nine out of ten is greater than seventy and six out of ten is greater than eighty. It is known that vaccines work less well in the elderly and that their effectiveness declines more rapidly than in younger people. “With such high vaccination coverage, young people are not so sick that they end up in the hospital, where older people are vaccinated with underlying diseases,” says Paul Savellkull, a medical molecular microbiologist at MUMC.

The national picture does not yet indicate a significant decline in vaccine protection from hospitalization. From an analysis of hospital admissions by the Royal Institute of Public Health (RIVM) between September 1 and October 3 pale Four out of five corona patients in intensive care did not receive the vaccination. “Eight months after the start of the vaccination program in the Netherlands, there is still no evidence that protection has decreased over time since vaccination,” RIVM Books.

44 percent have been vaccinated

The proportion of positive tests among fully vaccinated people is also increasing. In August, a quarter of the number of positive coronavirus tests came from fully vaccinated people, in September about a third. Meanwhile, as of Monday, October 25, vaccinated people account for nearly half (44 percent) of the number of new infections, According to RIVM figures.

It is tempting to draw far-reaching conclusions based on these numbers, against the background of a number of studies showing that the effectiveness of the vaccine against infection is declining. However, it is difficult to say based on these numbers. First of all, there was still a lot of vaccination in August: 2.5 million second shots were taken since the beginning of August. If the number of people vaccinated increases, you can also expect an increase in the number of positive tests in that group: after all, the vaccine does not protect 100 percent.

Nearly 82 percent of people over the age of 12 are now fully vaccinated. So one group is much larger than the other – if enough people are vaccinated, they automatically cause more than half of the positive tests.

test area

Furthermore, with test stats, you are highly dependent on test readiness: who comes to the test line in case of a complaint? This predisposition is higher among the vaccinated than among the non-vaccinated, as previously shown Survey by I&O Research. In previous waves of contamination, preparation for testing also increased as the situation became more urgent, for example when media reports surfaced about capacity problems in hospitals. This time seems to be the case: the number of tests performed has almost doubled in a month. A quarter of those who didn’t get vaccinated I&O Research said they no longer wanted to be tested at all, compared to 2% of those vaccinated.

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RIVM hopes to be able to make statements soon about the extent to which vaccines still protect against infection. The RIVM then looks at the number of vaccinated people who came to the test street and the percentage of those tests that were positive. This information is not yet public.

In general, the effectiveness of the vaccine against infection appears to be declining somewhat, while protection against hospitalization remains high. Despite this, the number of hospitalizations is increasing rapidly: last week, an average of 115 Covid patients per day were admitted to the nursing ward. to me First since June There are more than a thousand people infected with corona in hospitals.

The Cabinet moved the planned coronavirus press conference from next week to next Tuesday, three days earlier than planned. Since then, potential new measures such as the obligation to cover the mouth and the expansion of the Corona entry card have been circulated. The most important ministers met last Friday in Catshuis, but no decisions have been taken there yet.