Covid likely to be fatal ‘only for very old and already infirm’
Data show average age of death among vaccinated is 85 and most had a number of other illnesses
‘Fragile people with a reduced immune response are those who can benefit most from vaccination as this would further reduce the risk of infection’
PEOPLE vaccinated against Covid are highly unlikely to die of the disease unless they are very old and already ill, a study in Italy has shown.
The latest data puts more pressure on the Government to speed up the booster programme to protect doublejabbed older and sicker people who will be starting to lose immunity.
New analysis carried out by the Italian National Health Institute (ISS) which looked at deaths in Italy between Feb 1 and Oct 5 found major disparities in people who were dying from Covid after being fully jabbed.
They found that the average age of death in the vaccinated was 85 and on average each had five underlying illnesses when they caught Covid.
In contrast, the average age of death among the unvaccinated was 78, and those people had four pre-existing conditions on average.
Cases of heart problems, dementia and cancer were all found to be higher in the sample of deaths among those vaccinated.
During the study period there were 38,096 Covid deaths in Italy, among which 33,620 were unvaccinated, 2,130 had received only a single-dose or were infected shortly after inoculation before antibodies had formed, and 1,440 were fully vaccinated.
It comes as new data from the Scottish researchers showed that vaccination is more than 90 per cent effective in preventing deaths from the Delta variant.
Researchers analysed data from 5.4 million people in Scotland between 1 April and 27 Sept 2021.
They found the Pfizer vaccine is 90 per cent effective and the Astrazeneca 91 per cent effective in preventing deaths in people who have been double vaccinated.
The results published in the New England Journal of Medicine, are the first to show across an entire country how effective vaccines are at preventing death from the Delta variant.
Professor Aziz Sheikh, director of the University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute, said: “With the Delta variant now the dominant strain in many places worldwide and posing a higher risk of hospitalization than previous variants seen in the UK, it is reassuring to see that vaccination offers such high protection from death very shortly after the second dose.
Prof Chris Robertson, University of Strathclyde and Public Health Scotland, said: “Our findings are encouraging in showing that the vaccine remains an effective measure in protecting both ourselves and others from death from the most dominant variant of Covid.
Latest data from Public Health England show that the death rate is three times higher for unvaccinated under-50s.
Most recent prevalence data found that 1.76 per cent of unvaccinated people were found to have the virus. Prevalence among fully vaccinated people in the three months after their second jab was around 1 in 285 (0.35 per cent).
However between three and six months it rose to 1 in 181 (0.55) – a 57 per cent increase, showing the importance of a booster jab.
The Italian study concluded: “The results presented here clearly indicate that people who died after completing the vaccination course have a high level of clinical complexity, significantly higher than people who could not benefit because they haven’t even started the vaccination course.
“It is possible to hypothesize that very elderly patients with numerous diseases may have a reduced immune response and therefore be susceptible to SARS-COV-2 infection and its complications despite having been vaccinated.
“These very fragile persons with a reduced immune response are those who can benefit most from a broad vaccination coverage of the entire population as this would further reduce the risk of infection.”