Vaccines against COVID-19 have shown their effectiveness in significantly reducing the chances that people who are infected with the coronavirus will develop a serious illness, and now a study carried out by scientists from the Data Science Group of the Aragonese Institute of Health Sciences (IACS) has revealed that those who have received the complete vaccination schedule against COVID have up to 41 times less risk of hospital admission, 154 times less admission to the ICU and 100 times less chance of dying if they become infected with COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 compared to those who have not been vaccinated.
The research has been carried out by analyzing the data of the Aragonese population registered in the health system since March 1, 2020 that had any type of relationship with COVID-19, such as visits to Primary Care or the Emergency Room, hospital admissions, tests diagnostic for being a close contact of a positive, antigen test, etc. The data is part of the COVID Cohort, designed by the IACS at the beginning of the pandemic and which is proving very useful in much of the scientific activity of the last year.
In Aragon, almost 90% of people over the age of 12 are vaccinated against COVID, and according to IACS experts, the booster dose of these vaccines considerably reduces the risk of becoming infected with the coronavirus, which is up to five times lower in comparison. with a person who has taken two doses, and it also reduces the chance of hospitalization five times.
Vaccines even more effective than what has been observed in clinical trials
Enrique Bernal, the group’s principal investigator, declared that “these are extraordinary figures and it is something that we do not usually see in epidemiology.” “The vaccine is immensely more effective than what we saw in clinical studies,” he stated during the presentation of the study and in the framework of a press conference led by Public Health in which data on the vaccination rate in Aragón and its impact on the health system.
the booster dose of the COVID vaccines decreases the risk of becoming infected with the coronavirus by up to five times, compared to having received the complete vaccine schedule
To carry out the research, the experts from the IACS – an “international reference” center for the use of health data for decision-making support – have studied the health card data of 1.3 million people residing in Aragon, which has allowed them to verify the effectiveness of the vaccine “in real life” and confirm “if the entire deployment” to carry out mass vaccination of the population “makes sense”, explained Bernal, who He adds that they have thus been able to verify that the effectiveness of the vaccine “has exceeded what was expected in clinical trials.”
Among the data offered by Bernal, it stands out that of the total number of people residing in Aragón –1,313,465– 1,018,966 have received the complete guideline, of which 135,874 have been infected after being vaccinated. Of these infected, 3,273 had to be admitted to the hospital, 147 to the ICU, and 1,763 died. In the case of the 294,499 who were not vaccinated or with an incomplete schedule, 176,294 were infected, of whom 19,727 were hospitalized, 1,469 were admitted to the ICU and 6,201 died.
Regarding the immune or vaccine escape of SARS-CoV-2, which has meant that 13.33% of people with a complete vaccination schedule have been infected with the virus after receiving the corresponding doses, Bernal points out that this has occurred above all in the younger population, so he does not consider it “an intrinsic problem of the vaccine”, but attributes it to the fact that at those ages “you have more risk contacts”. He has also indicated that the omicron variant “can escape more, but that does not explain the age difference”, and that for this reason “it is so important to maintain complementary measures” such as the use of the mask in interior spaces and the COVID Passport.
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