Most people who are not vaccinated for Covid-19 believe they do not need it. People offer different reasons: «I live in the countryside», «I have a healthy lifestyle», «I’m young», «vaccines are bad for health», and others.
The latest statistical data reveals just how harmful the virus is for non-vaccinated people. The Disease Prevention and Monitoring Centre reports that even vaccinated people end up hospitalized with Covid-19. Some of them end up dying. However, medical workers say that vaccinated people generally do not suffer severe infection. Nevertheless, in rare cases people vaccinated for Covid-19 also had other illnesses when they were infected with Covid-19. Complications caused by Covid-19 also affected those illnesses, causing further complications and even death.
Of the 375 people hospitalized with Covid-19 in September, 332 patients (88.5%) were either not vaccinated for Covid-19 or had not yet finished their vaccination course at the moment of their hospitalization. 43 patients (11.5%) were vaccinated.
In September non-vaccinated people and people who had not completed their vaccination course were vaccinated 5.1 times more often than vaccinated people.
Of the 139 people who died of Covid-19 in September, 124 (89.2%) were not vaccinated or had not yet completed their vaccination course at the time of their death. 15 had completed their vaccination course but had other illnesses on top of Covid-19 infection. Three of those people were younger than 60 years, two were 60-70 years old and five were 80-90 years old.
SPKC reminds that with increasing numbers of vaccinated residents and with Covid-19 infection continuing among non-vaccinated people mostly, it is expected for the percentage of infections to rise among vaccinated residents as well.
Covid-19 infection is most often light among vaccinated residents and they require hospitalization only in rare cases. This is why the percentage of vaccinated and infected people should always be viewed in the context of the number of prevented Covid-19 cases in society.
Last week the number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients increased 41% in Latvia.
The number of new Covid-19 cases in Latvia increased 18.2% last week. The number of hospitalized patients increased 32%.
Data from SPKC shows that Covid-19 reproduction number R had dropped to 1.12 last week (1.33 the week prior), which indicates the infection remains active.