'Vaccines work': 96% of Covid deaths since April were unvaccinated people
Concerning ICU admissions since April, of the 169 people who have been admitted for critical care, just six of these have not been fully vaccinated.
Almost 96% of Covid-19 related deaths since April have been people who are not full vaccinated against the disease, with just seven of the 155 completing their full vaccinated regime.
It comes the Department of Health has been notified of 15 new Covid related deaths in the last week.
With regards to ICU admissions, since April there have been 169 people in receipt of critical care, with only six of these people being fully vaccinated.
There are currently 219 patients in hospitals with Covid-19 - an increase of 41 in the last 24 hours - marking a four-month high.
The deputy chief medical officer, Dr Ronan Glynn, is urging anyone who is not yet vaccinated to come forward for a jab.
He says that without vaccinations we would be seeing many more infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
These vaccines are about 80% to 85%, protective against symptomatic disease, and about 95% protective against hospitalisation and we're seeing that in our figures," he said.
"The best analogy for this is in relation to road safety.
"We know that the vast majority of people on our roads wear safety belts and we know that the vast majority of people who die on our roads, every year are wearing safety belts.
"This does not mean that safety belts don't work."
Dr Glynn said that the National Public Health Emergency Team are reporting an average of 1,700 cases per day to the Department of health.
"We currently have 219 people in hospital, and we've admitted about 27 people in hospital on average every day over the past week, and 41 in the last 24 hours," he said.
The vast majority who were now contracting Covid-19 experienced only mild symptoms, he said. A small minority would have serious complications.
Fewer serious outcomes were now being seen when compared to other periods during the pandemic.
“But we’re not out of the woods yet.”
Dr Glynn encouraged parents and guardians to go to reputable sources for information about vaccination for 12 to 15-year-olds.
His advice was to be properly informed as vaccination for this cohort was important for children with underlying conditions themselves or who lived in households where there were those at risk.
“The advice is strong for any child with underlying medical conditions to avail of the vaccinations and equally any child who lives in a household with other potentially vulnerable people should get vaccinated.”
The vaccination campaign was a key part of the plan to get back to normality and for children to return to school, he said.
For the vast majority, the risk of ending up seriously unwell with Covid-19 was preventable through vaccination. The ambition was to get as many people as possible vaccinated “so we can get back to a level as close to normal as quickly as possible,” he said.
“I implore everyone to get vaccinated if they have had only the first dose, to get the second dose so they will be fully protected.”
The numbers were going in the right direction “everything bar the disease itself.”
“We have to be hopeful.”
Meanwhile, Prof Philip Nolan, chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, says that the "increasing proportion of cases and hospitalisations is in line with expectations."
He says this tells us the vaccines are highly effective and are preventing a "very large number" of infections and hospitalisations.
In a series of tweets, Prof Nolan says that 70% of the Irish adult population is no protected against Covid-19 - at least two weeks after receiving their vaccinations - and he would expect about 30% of cases and 15% of hospitalisations to be fully vaccinated.
#VaccinesWork. The increasing proportion of cases and hospitalisations in fully vaccinated people is in line with expectations, and tells us vaccines are working, are highly effective, and are preventing a very large number of infections and hospitalisations. 1/6 pic.twitter.com/E8g29FxEMT
— Professor Philip Nolan (@PhilipNolan_MU) August 12, 2021
"What we don’t see is that for every fully vaccinated case, vaccines are preventing about 4 other cases," he said.
"Vaccines are preventing at least 2,700 cases per week per million population, probably more."
Prof Nolan added that for every vaccinated person who is admitted to hospitals with Covid-19, "vaccines are averting 10-12 other severe infections and hospital admissions" - at least 120 per million.
He added that if full vaccine coverage increases to 90%, the majority of cases and close to half of the hospital admissions will be fully vaccinated, "but it is a smaller number of cases and hospitalisations."
"The vaccines are highly effective," Prof Nolan concluded.
"The more of us that are vaccinated, the greater our protection.
"Vaccines are not perfectly effective: we will need to help them by taking simple hygiene measures to prevent infection."
