The ministry puts the number of people who were spared admission to an intensive care unit thanks to the vaccination at 1,755 after a parliamentary request from NEOS. NEOS health spokesman Gerald Loacker calls on the government to do everything possible to vaccinate at least 70 percent of the population by autumn.
So far, 10,662 people have died in Austria after a corona infection – 2,200 of them in February, March and April. For the model calculation, the ministry has now compared these figures with the values that would have been expected without vaccination. The basic assumption is that the number of infections and deaths without vaccination would also have developed in those over 65 years of age analogous to the number of cases in the 16 to 65 year olds (at that time largely unvaccinated).
This would have resulted in 1,807 more deaths in February, March and April without vaccination. According to this comparative calculation, the vaccination prevented more than four out of ten deaths, as well as every third hospitalization (3,888) and slightly more than every third admission to an intensive care unit (1,755).
Massive efforts in the vaccination campaign required
In view of these impact figures, Loacker once again demands massive efforts in the vaccination campaign. “We see from the vaccination pioneers Great Britain and Israel that the vaccination quota hardly rises above 60 percent. Everything must now be done so that we get at least 70 percent vaccination coverage and are prepared for the autumn,” said the NEOS MP . In view of the high effectiveness of the vaccinations in the older age group, the federal states with a lower level of vaccination would have to do everything again to win the older people over to the vaccination.
Once again, however, the response to the query also shows the inadequate data situation in combating the pandemic. The Ministry of Health is currently unable to quantify the proportion of high-risk patients who have already been vaccinated against Covid-19. And for the hospitalizations, the ministry had to resort to calculations by the COVID forecast consortium because no “real data” from the hospitals was available for the period under review.
Virus Sars-CoV-2 will stay
However, the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus will remain, even if the majority of the world’s population should be vaccinated – the majority of experts now assume this. The much-mentioned herd immunity does not change that. It means that large waves of infection become unlikely, but not that the virus will go away. Disappearance is also made unlikely by the appearance of more and more new variants. It will therefore be important to permanently monitor the spread of known and newly emerging mutants – on the one hand, in order to be able to adapt vaccines and, on the other hand, in order to detect the beginning of larger waves of propagation at an early stage. Since this is a global problem, an international structure is necessary, explained Isabella Eckerle, head of the Emerging Viruses research group at the Swiss University of Geneva.
Monitoring of farm animals and wild animals is necessary
“Especially those regions in which access to vaccines is limited and which have to wait a long time for the population to be vaccinated and in which at the same time largely uncontrolled virus circulation takes place represent risk areas for new variants.” Certain livestock and wild animal populations should also be included in the monitoring.
Richard Neher, head of the research group Evolution of Viruses and Bacteria at the Biozentrum of the Swiss University of Basel, emphasized that the influenza monitoring system for the annual flu waves could serve as a model. “A global network has existed here for years that collects influenza viruses and measures incidences.” Every six months there is a recommendation for the composition of the flu vaccine. Regular updates of the vaccines will probably also be necessary with Covid-19.
The current status is that the available vaccines against variants such as Alpha and Delta are somewhat less effective in terms of infections, but still protect very well against very severe courses, said Annelies Wilder-Smith, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK.
“Basic immunization before booster”
“As reducing the death rate is the number one public health goal in the current phase of the pandemic, the focus should remain on vaccinating a larger proportion of the population quickly, rather than providing booster doses.” This is all the more important as the world doesn’t even have enough vaccines to give everyone a first dose, said Wilder-Smith. A quick vaccination of the population is also the best strategy to reduce the development of questionable variants.
“Globally, the most important measure is the fastest and broadest possible vaccination, so that the virus is given less opportunity to create new variants through evolutionary pressure,” emphasized Eckerle. Fortunately, it seems to be the case that the same mutations often arise in the variants – the virus may only have a limited repertoire of mutations in order to adapt better. “If vaccines against variants that cover these mutations are also available in the near future, a fairly stable situation could arise in which the occurrence of more and more new variants is slowed down.”
If the groups at high risk of becoming seriously ill are largely vaccinated, this also means relief for the clinics – and an end to “pandemic thinking”, said the President of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine (DGIIN), Christian Karagiannidis, on Tuesday. In the future, Covid-19 will become a disease of everyday hospital life and lose the horror of a ripple pandemic – one is going “into a chronic phase”.
The Berlin virologist Christian Drosten recently told the Swiss online magazine “Republik”: “That was a misunderstanding from the start, if you understood it to mean that herd immunity means: 70 percent become immune – regardless of whether through vaccination or infection – and the remaining 30 percent will no longer have any contact with the virus. ”
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