Although the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine protects against the severe disease COVID-19, it is known that immunity and therefore the degree of protection decreases over time, especially for the elderly.
The Doctors of the Therapeutic Clinic of the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Theodora Psaltopoulou, Giannis Danasis, Panos Malandrakis and Thanos Dimopoulos (Rector of EKPA) summarize the latest data.
Interesting facts are presented by a recent study from Norway in the form of pre-publication. The researchers used data from a national prospective database of COVID-19 patients in Norway between 1 February and 30 September 2021.
Of those treated, those who were fully vaccinated were significantly older, with a median age of 77 years, while those who were not vaccinated had a median age of 51 years.
Respectively, those who were vaccinated already had a higher frequency of predisposing factors for more serious disease, such as cardiovascular disease (60.7% vs. 27.3%), cancer (12.6% vs. 2.8%) and chronic respiratory diseases (19.7% versus 5.3%).
Vaccinated patients had a significantly shorter hospital stay as well as a significantly lower chance of being admitted to an intensive care unit compared to non-vaccinated patients.
In addition, it is worth noting that the third dose of the vaccine brings significant and rapid, due to the previous immune memory, increase of antibodies and at the same time prevents to a much greater extent the possibility of infection after exposure to the virus, and serious illness.
According to a study from Israel, people who have taken the third dose are, depending on their age group, 8 to 10 times less likely to get sick than those who have taken the two doses and 20 to 25 times less likely than those who have not been vaccinated. . The percentages are similar for the chances of serious illness and the need for hospitalization due to COVID-19.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control, COVID-19 is three times more common in those who have not been vaccinated, while hospital admissions are twice as high and those who have not been vaccinated are seven times more likely to die.
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