New analyses of hospital and ICU admissions show that COVID-19 vaccination continues to be very effective. In the period from 11 July to 14 November, vaccine effectiveness was 94% against hospital admission and 97% against ICU admission. Vaccine effectiveness measured over the past eight weeks was 92% against hospital admission and 96% against ICU admission.
In the past eight weeks, the chance that a fully vaccinated person with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 will be admitted to hospital was 12.5 times lower than for a non-vaccinated person. The chance of ICU admission for a fully vaccinated person was 25 times lower. These results show that there are no major changes in vaccine effectiveness compared to previous analyses in early November 2021.
There are several possible explanations for why vaccine effectiveness has been slightly lower in the last 8 weeks compared to the entire period from 11 July to 14 November 2021. One possibility is that people who have recently been admitted to hospital were, on average, vaccinated longer ago than people who were admitted at an earlier point in the year. The higher infection rate in recent weeks may also explain it.
Vaccine effectiveness against hospital admission in the age group of 70 years and older was 86% in the past eight weeks.
The new data also shows that the incidence of both hospital and ICU admissions in the age group of 50-69 years primarily increased among unvaccinated people (Figure 1). In the age group of 70 and older, the incidence of admissions also increased among fully vaccinated people, although it is still many times higher among unvaccinated people.
Figure 1. Incidence per 100,000 people of the number of COVID-19 (A) hospital admissions and (B) ICU admissions among unvaccinated, partly vaccinated and fully vaccinated people, by age group. Due to reporting delays, the data for the past few days is not yet complete.
Data used for this page comes from NICE data on hospital admissions of patients with COVID-19 admitted until 14 November 2021, enriched on 15 November 2021 with vaccination data from the central COVID-19 vaccination register (CIMS). Further details on how vaccine effectiveness is calculated can be found in the report: Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination against hospital and ICU admission in the Netherlands (admissions 11 July - 14 November 2021) (report in Dutch). Please note: underlying data cannot be published due to its privacy-sensitive nature.