People over 75 years old living at home are 82% protected against testing positive for COVID-19 from three weeks after the second vaccination. Protection against hospital admissions reaches 94% three weeks after the second jab, and protection against death from the coronavirus is also 94%. In the first eight weeks after the start of the vaccination programme, a huge drop in the number of positive COVID-19 tests, hospital admissions and deaths was observed among older people living at home and among nursing home residents. This has become apparent from an analysis by RIVM, now that sufficient data on this age group is available, more than four months after the start of the vaccination programme.
Since 26 January 2021, mobile older people living at home have been vaccinated against COVID-19 with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. RIVM calculated that full vaccination in this group reduces the risk of testing positive for COVID-19 by 82%. Protection diminishes somewhat with age: from three weeks after the second dose, vaccination offers 96% protection in people aged 75-79, 87% in people aged 80-84, and 72% in people aged 85 and older.
Significant decrease in positive tests and deaths
Since many people went in for their vaccinations, within eight weeks after the start of the vaccination campaign, a 66% decrease in the number of positive COVID-19 tests and a 52% decrease in the number of deaths due to COVID-19 were already observed among people 85 and older living at home. There was an even greater decrease in the number of positive tests and deaths among nursing home residents (90% and 83% respectively). The progress of the epidemic was taken into account in calculating this decrease.
The data confirms that COVID-19 vaccination offers older people effective protection against severe COVID-19.
Read more in the full report on the study (in Dutch).