The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said that 87% of a group of hospitalised COVID-19 patients who had died over the past six weeks were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.
The NICD shared this data during a technical briefing yesterday, saying that huge increases in coronavirus infections over the past few weeks did not result in a surge of hospitalisations.
NICD data showed that there were 9,023 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalised with the disease, compared to 6,895 a week ago.
Of the 309 COVID-19 patients who’d died and whose vaccination status was known, 40 were fully vaccinated while 269 were not vaccinated or not fully vaccinated.
Doctor Waasila Jassat said that the data was recorded from 7 November until 18 December.
“For J&J there were nine patients who died after receiving one dose. None of them received a booster and the time from vaccination to admission was about almost four months. It ranged from 87 days to 143 days,” Dr Jassat said.
According to Wassat 28 patients had received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
‘Thirty-five had gotten a second dose and none had a booster. Again, similarly, four months was the average time from vaccination to admission. Very few people had died within three months of being vaccinated,’ Jassat said.
These experts have stressed the importance of this data regarding the protection provided by coronavirus jabs as well as the benefits of getting a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot.
[Photo: Mufid Majnun]