4 in 5 COVID-19 patients in intensive care are not vaccinated against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The chance that a fully vaccinated person will end up in ICU due to COVID-19 is 33 times lower than for a non-vaccinated person.
Vaccination offers effective protection against illness caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection, and is very effective in preventing severe COVID-19. More than 80% of all people in the Netherlands aged 12 years and older are now vaccinated, and this number continues to rise. As stated previously, the vaccines offer fully vaccinated people 95% protection against hospital admission and 97% against ICU admission. The effectiveness of the vaccines in preventing hospital and ICU admissions has remained high in recent months.
Figure 1. Number of people admitted to hospital with COVID-19 per day, between 1 September and 3 October 2021, per 100,000 people with the same vaccination status in the population, by age category. For example: Out of every 100,000 people over 75 years old who are not vaccinated, 3.8 were admitted to hospital. Out of every 100,000 people over 75 years old who are vaccinated, 0.35 were admitted to hospital.
Vaccinated and admitted to hospital
Despite full vaccination, people may still get SARS-CoV-2 and test positive for COVID-19, and some will be admitted to hospital. Older people (and vulnerable people) are more likely to be hospitalised with COVID-19.
Between 1 September and 3 October, 4 out of 5 COVID-19 patients in intensive care were unvaccinated. 3 out of 4 COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital were unvaccinated (see Figure 2). In the Netherlands, less than 20% of the population (12 years and older) is currently not fully vaccinated.
Because more and more people are getting vaccinated, the percentage of vaccinated people who are admitted to hospital is increasing. However, there are still more unvaccinated people in hospital than vaccinated people. This is despite the fact that the group of vaccinated people in the Netherlands is much larger than the group of unvaccinated people.
Figure 2 and 3. Distribution of vaccination status for COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital and ICU, for patients whose vaccination status was known. In total, 1482 COVID-19 patients were admitted to hospital between 1 September and 3 October 2021, and the vaccination status of 1369 of those patients (92%) was known. In the same period, 311 COVID-19 patients were admitted to the ICU, and the vaccination status of 282 (91%) was known.
The data used for this page consists of data from the NICE Foundation, enriched with vaccination data from the central register of COVID-19 vaccinations (CIMS). More details on how the data was compiled are available in a recent RIVM report on vaccination effectiveness research.
Correction, 27 October 2021: The caption for Figure 1 has been updated to clarify that these are average numbers per day, not the average for the entire time period.
Would you like to know more? Watch the video: percentage of vaccinated people with COVID-19 in hospital
