COLUMN: By the numbers: Vaxxed vs. unvaxxed

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At times there have been more people hospitalized with COVID-19 who are fully vaccinated than those who aren’t vaccinated. That truth is very misleading.

It fluctuates. There were days recently where about 60 per cent of those hospitalized were fully vaccinated compared to unvaccinated

One day last week saw 14 of 25 as fully vaccinated; another where it was 17 of 28.

In both cases, every person in the ICU with COVID-19 – the folks in the worst shape with the virus – was unvaccinated.

Let’s try to put the numbers in perspective. I’m talking population percentages of those vaccinated and those who are not. Bear with me, as there are a lot of numbers at play, but they are telling.

First off, the average age of people hospitalized with COVID has been generally 70 and above. So we’ll look at the percentages for four age groups – 80-plus, 70-79, 60-69 and 50-59.

Collectively, these groups represent 48,112 of our population, based on 2020 population estimates from Statistics Canada.

Of those folks, an estimated 4,879 are unvaccinated, while 43,233 are fully vaccinated, based on CK Public Health vaccination figures.

On Jan. 12, we saw 17 vaccinated people and 11 unvaccinated individuals hospitalized at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance due to COVID-19. The 17 people came from a pool of more than 48,000, while the 11 came from a cluster of fewer than 4,900.

That breaks down to an unvaccinated person being nearly six times more likely to be hospitalized than someone who is fully vaccinated.

I’ll take those odds with two needles in my arm, thanks.

Furthermore, we’re being kind with our numbers. The 50-59 group is a long ways from the average age of 70-plus for those hospitalized in our figures, but makes up more than half of the unvaccinated numbers at play here.

If we were to remove the 50-59 category from our numbers, then – again we’re using the 11+17=28 Jan. 12 snapshot – the figures are even more in favour of the vaccine.

Based on 30,605 vaccinated and 2,107 unvaccinated figures, People in C-K aged 60 and over are about 9.4 times more likely to wind up in the hospital with COVID if they are unvaccinated compared to fully vaccinated.

Again, this is based on one day’s percentages where 60 per cent of those hospitalized were fully vaccinated and 40 per cent were unvaccinated.

This is not some form of conspiracy. These are simple numbers. It shows that while omicron is breaking through the vaccine, those who are vaccinated are way less likely to suffer serious health complications that require hospitalization than those who are unvaxxed.

Until antivirals are prevalent for prescribing by doctors, and probably even after that point, the vaccine is your best defence.

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Here’s a sobering note: These days, CK Public Health says our daily number of positive cases are likely much higher as access to the PCR testing is limited to high-risk cases. Despite that, it took just 12 days to go from 4,000 cases to date of COVID-19 in the municipality to 5,000.

To go from the first case of the virus locally to the 1,000th, it took about 10 months. The next 1,000 cases arrived in seven months; the next in three months; and going from 3,000 to 4,000 took a month.

2 COMMENTS

  1. It is so refreshing to read something from someone you can trust, Thank you. The numbers speak for themselves, I hope they speak to those who need to hear them.

  2. Good statistics Bruce. What I would like added to your article, is the expected disease spread responsibility of both groups.

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