Unvaccinated patients dominate COVID deaths and ICU
Most people who have died from COVID-19 in NSW had not received a vaccine, while no one under 70 has died having received two doses.
Around 9% of people hospitalised in NSW during the ongoing Delta outbreak have been treated in ICU. (Image: AAP)
Less than 2% of people admitted to intensive care in New South Wales in the first 11 weeks of the recent outbreak were fully vaccinated, the latest NSW Health weekly surveillance report shows.
The document, which gives a breakdown of the vaccination status of all those who enter the hospital system with COVID-19, also shows that none of the 15 fully vaccinated patients who died of the disease were under 70.
The latest report covers the week from 29 August until 4 September, the most recent period for which official data has been released in the state at the centre of the largest COVID-19 outbreak so far in Australia.
It indicates 4654 people were hospitalised due to COVID-19 from the beginning of the outbreak in June until that time, of which around 9% (441) were treated in ICU.
Of the total admitted to hospital, 153 (3.3%) were confirmed as fully vaccinated, while 844 (18.1%) were partially vaccinated and the rest (3657) were unvaccinated, or their vaccination status was unable to be established.
In total 284 unvaccinated people (64.4%) had been treated in ICU during the latest outbreak up to 4 September. Seventy patients (15.9%) who received intensive care were categorised as partially vaccinated, while eight (1.8%) were fully vaccinated.
The remaining 79 people treated in ICU had an undetermined vaccination status.
Professor Dimity Pond, an honorary professor of general practice at the University of Newcastle, said the figures in the surveillance reports correspond with expectations about the vaccines.
‘That’s the kind of pattern that we’ve been seeing where the deaths are very largely in people who aren’t vaccinated,’ Professor Pond told newsGP.
‘It’s really hard data. It can’t be interpreted in any way other than vaccination means that you’re less likely to die.’
Until 4 September, there were 129 confirmed COVID deaths within NSW – again mostly among the unvaccinated. Of those deaths, 15 (11.6%) were confirmed as fully vaccinated, including six people in their 70s, five in their 80s and four in their 90s.
