Mathematician Kollár: What would cause more vaccinees? Differences in hospitals, but there would also be more side effects of vaccines – Topky.sk

If we had already vaccinated 50 percent of the entire population instead of 45 percent, our hospitals were calculated to be significantly empty. “Our estimate is that there would be about 1,561 patients with covide instead of more than 2,600 in hospitals today. That’s 41 percent less than it really is, with an increase in vaccination coverage of only 5 percentage points.” said Kollár.

According to him, the improvement of 41 percent can be divided into two effects. 7 percentage points account for the direct effect of vaccinations on the number of patients hospitalized, as vaccinated people are about six to seven times less likely to be admitted to hospital, even if they become infected. According to Kollár, another 34 percentage points are the indirect effect of vaccination, which slows down the overall growth of the epidemic in the population. “So in this scenario, we would have an incidence (number of new reported cases of positive PCR tests) of only 664 per hundred thousand inhabitants, not the 1052 we had the day before yesterday,” he explained.

Source: TASR / Hendrik Schmidt / dpa-Zentralbild / dpa, dpa-Bildfunk

At the same time, the total number of people admitted to hospitals since the beginning of the delta wave would fall by 41 percent. Of the current 8,702, this would be an estimate of only about 1802. “By maintaining the measures, we would only reach today’s situation in about 32 days, which would probably give us more time to cope with this wave, especially in hospitals.” added Kollár.

For example, if we had a 60% vaccination rate today, as in the Czech Republic or Austria, we would expect only about 544 people with COVID-19 in hospitals, which is about one-fifth of the current situation. “Yes, it’s more in the Czech Republic, but their wave started earlier, so they grow longer until that state, with the exponential growth that we now actually observe consistently during the delta wave period – at least temporarily – time is an extremely important factor.” he explained.

Source: SITA / Waltraud Grubitzsch / dpa via AP

More serious side effects

However, higher vaccination would naturally also lead to a higher number of serious side effects of vaccines. According to Kollar, these would increase from 1091, which are reported during the pandemic to this day, to about 1336, which would be an increase of about 22 percent more.

“The increase in the number of people with side effects would therefore be significantly less than the number of people who would not get to the hospital due to vaccination. For the other 245 people with side effects, there would be about 7600, ie about 30 times more people who would vaccines did not get to the hospital. 30-fold. At 15 percent of the population vaccinated in addition, “ said Kollár.

Source: TASR / AP Photo / Markus Schreiber

Apparently we would have different rules

However, great care must be taken with interpretation in these considerations. The estimate assumes that, despite the significantly worse or better epidemic situation, approximately the same epidemic measures as we should have been applied in our country. However, with better vaccinations, the situation would probably be worse, as we would have more lenient measures.

“In fact, with better vaccinations, the situation would probably be worse because we would have more lenient measures. Conversely, if we were vaccinated less, the measures would be stricter and the epidemic situation better than described in the figures in the table. Nor can the estimate be interpreted as an estimate of a possible improvement or deterioration if we vaccinate a relevant percentage of the population in the future, which is why Austria or the Czech Republic currently have a similar incidence as Slovakia, despite higher vaccinations. the pandemic wave started earlier and grew more slowly, despite the fact that their measures were milder. “ he pointed out that we see the effect of lower incomes in hospitals in comparison with ours in both neighbors.