4 ms·

Sure, but I'm willing to bet most of the hospitalised are not vaccinated, or at least a disproportionate amount of them aren't vaccinated

TechBro8615 5y ago
How much are you willing to bet? Keep in mind that if the population is 90% vaccinated, you expect something approaching 90% of ICU beds to be vaccinated (well, with an effective and sterilizing vaccine you wouldn’t expect this, but that’s not where we are). In England last month, 79% of Covid deaths were vaccinated. Currently about 36% of hospitalizations are unvaccinated. The raw data is here, good luck parsing anything useful out of it: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1037987/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-48.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- christkv 5y ago
  A majority of deaths in the winter months will be elderly people with underlying health conditions that might have died from a flue or cold virus if covid was not circulating. It's more interesting to see excess deaths for this winter. I have a hunch excess death rates will be similar to 2019.
  - ptaipale 5y ago
    I don't think so, but we can quite well follow it up here, for most developed and semi-developed countries. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&facet=none&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Excess+mortality+%28count%29&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=FIN~SWE~USA~GBR~RUS~ROU~SGP~PER https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor... (As OWID relies on official data sources, they may be skewed or manipulated for undeveloped or autocratic countries)
- ptaipale 5y ago
  Not really. With population vaccination rate nearly 90 % we have something approaching 30-40 % of hospital and ICU bed users vaccinated. The risk of ending up on ICU is about 30 x higher here, when comparing similar demographics. Risk of needing to go to hospital is 19 x higher currently.
  - makomk 5y ago
    The UK is interesting in that only about 70% of the population is fully vaccinated, which seems to be less than the proportion of Covid-releated deaths that were fully vaccinated. This isn't because the Covid vaccines are ineffective at preventing death - it's just that age has a much bigger effect than vaccination on someone's risk of dying from Covid, and the high-risk age groups are almost 100% vaccinated whereas the lowest risk are largely unvaccinated.
    - ptaipale 5y ago
      Yes, and generally the age risk is so high that proper assessments must be done comparing age cohorts, not the entire population vax/unvax rates.
- microtherion 5y ago
  I've been trying to get a clear answer to this for some time, because at least in Switzerland, and apparently in other countries as well, vaccination status of hospitalizations and deaths is well published, while vaccination status of ICU occupants is reported only anecdotally. As you say, a sizable percentage of deaths (~50% in the 60+ age group) are vaccinated — because those tend to skew elderly (85 in Switzerland) and highly vaccinated (>90%). Likewise, a sizable percentage of hospitalizations (~40% in 60+) are vaccinated — those are a bit younger (66 in Switzerland) because many of the very elderly patients never make it to a hospital. All the ICU administrators I've seen interviewed, however, say that their ICU occupants are ~90% unvaccinated. One explanation for this might be that the ICU median age is considerably younger than the above ages, about 55 in Switzerland, and younger population groups are less vaccinated. But IF this is in fact the case, I wish the statistics were public.

TechBro8615 5y ago

How much are you willing to bet? Keep in mind that if the population is 90% vaccinated, you expect something approaching 90% of ICU beds to be vaccinated (well, with an effective and sterilizing vaccine you wouldn’t expect this, but that’s not where we are). In England last month, 79% of Covid deaths were vaccinated. Currently about 36% of hospitalizations are unvaccinated. The raw data is here, good luck parsing anything useful out of it: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1037987/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-48.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

christkv 5y ago
A majority of deaths in the winter months will be elderly people with underlying health conditions that might have died from a flue or cold virus if covid was not circulating. It's more interesting to see excess deaths for this winter. I have a hunch excess death rates will be similar to 2019.
- ptaipale 5y ago
  I don't think so, but we can quite well follow it up here, for most developed and semi-developed countries. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&facet=none&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Excess+mortality+%28count%29&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=FIN~SWE~USA~GBR~RUS~ROU~SGP~PER https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor... (As OWID relies on official data sources, they may be skewed or manipulated for undeveloped or autocratic countries)
ptaipale 5y ago
Not really. With population vaccination rate nearly 90 % we have something approaching 30-40 % of hospital and ICU bed users vaccinated. The risk of ending up on ICU is about 30 x higher here, when comparing similar demographics. Risk of needing to go to hospital is 19 x higher currently.
- makomk 5y ago
  The UK is interesting in that only about 70% of the population is fully vaccinated, which seems to be less than the proportion of Covid-releated deaths that were fully vaccinated. This isn't because the Covid vaccines are ineffective at preventing death - it's just that age has a much bigger effect than vaccination on someone's risk of dying from Covid, and the high-risk age groups are almost 100% vaccinated whereas the lowest risk are largely unvaccinated.
  - ptaipale 5y ago
    Yes, and generally the age risk is so high that proper assessments must be done comparing age cohorts, not the entire population vax/unvax rates.
microtherion 5y ago
I've been trying to get a clear answer to this for some time, because at least in Switzerland, and apparently in other countries as well, vaccination status of hospitalizations and deaths is well published, while vaccination status of ICU occupants is reported only anecdotally. As you say, a sizable percentage of deaths (~50% in the 60+ age group) are vaccinated — because those tend to skew elderly (85 in Switzerland) and highly vaccinated (>90%). Likewise, a sizable percentage of hospitalizations (~40% in 60+) are vaccinated — those are a bit younger (66 in Switzerland) because many of the very elderly patients never make it to a hospital. All the ICU administrators I've seen interviewed, however, say that their ICU occupants are ~90% unvaccinated. One explanation for this might be that the ICU median age is considerably younger than the above ages, about 55 in Switzerland, and younger population groups are less vaccinated. But IF this is in fact the case, I wish the statistics were public.