Department of Health publishes Vaccination Status of Deaths and Hospitalisations Report
- Love Ballymena
- Oct 6, 2021
- 2 min read
The Department of Health today published the Vaccination Status of Deaths and Hospitalisations Report.
This report presents results for Northern Ireland on the vaccination status of patients who have been hospitalised from COVID-19 and of those who have died from COVID-19 between 30th August and 26th September 2021.
Key Findings – Hospitalisations:
• Three-quarters of adult inpatients aged under 50 are unvaccinated.
• More than a fifth (22%) of inpatients aged 50 and over are unvaccinated.
• Unvaccinated individuals aged 50 and over are five times as likely to be admitted to hospital as fully vaccinated individuals.
• For adults under 50, whilst the numbers admitted to hospital are lower, an unvaccinated individual is almost 18 times as likely to need hospitalisation.
Key Findings – Death:
• Unvaccinated individuals aged 50 and over are almost four times as likely to die.
The results contained in this report should be interpreted in the context of vaccine coverage in the Northern Ireland population. The success of the vaccination programme has resulted in a very small percentage of unvaccinated individuals, particularly for the older age cohorts.
When there is a very high vaccine coverage in the population, even with a highly effective vaccine, it is to be expected that a large proportion of cases, hospitalisations and deaths would occur in vaccinated individuals. This is simply because a larger proportion of the population are vaccinated than unvaccinated and no vaccine is 100% effective and is especially true because vaccination has been prioritised in individuals who are more susceptible or more at risk of severe disease.
Individuals in risk groups may also be more at risk of hospitalisation or death due to non COVID-19 causes, and thus may be hospitalised or die with COVID-19 rather than because of COVID-19. Death and admissions rates per 100,000 should therefore be interpreted with caution.
The number of deaths is as reported to the Public Health Agency where the deceased has had a positive test for COVID-19 and dies within 28 days, whether or not COVID-19 was the cause of death. Patients are allocated to an age cohort based on their age at date of death.
