Severe Covid-19 cases involving seniors nearly halved since vaccine rollout

 

Despite the record-breaking number of Covid-19 cases over the past week, the number of senior citizens admitted to the nation’s main Covid-19 hospital with severe manifestations of the disease have fallen by nearly half.

This bucks the trend of senior citizens generally faring worse when infected with Covid-19, even though the bulk of cases involve younger folk.

In a statement today, Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said this is an early sign of success for the nation’s immunisation programme, which had begun vaccinating senior citizens as part of Phase 2 of the programme since April 19.

“The latest data from Sungai Buloh Hospital up to July 18 shows a clear decrease in admissions with serious infection (Category 4 and 5) among senior citizens starting from the 23rd epidemiological week (June 6 to June 12).

“The decline is in line with the start of Phase 2 of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) in April and began to show signs of its effectiveness since the 22nd epidemiological week (May 30 to June 5).

Category 4 patients are those who have developed pneumonia and also require supplemental oxygen to breath. Category 5 patients are critically ill with multiple organs affected by the disease, and would require admission to intensive care units.

A chart provided by Noor Hisham shows that Category 4 and 5 admissions to Sungai Buloh Hospital among people aged 60 to 79 years old had peaked during the 21st week, with 217 patients between May 23 to May 29.

Since then, the number has plunged to 119 cases recorded last week, even as the number of young adults (20 to 39 years old) with serious illness kept increasing during the period from 95 cases in Week 21 to its peak of 124 cases at Week 28 (last week; July 11 to July 17).

The number of severe cases among those aged 40 to 59, meanwhile, hovered around 200 cases per week, while the number of cases involving those below 20 years old and those above 80 years old generally kept to 10 cases or less.

The timing of the drop seems to coincide with the earliest NIP Phase 2 vaccine recipients becoming fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

For context, most vaccines used under the NIP have a three-week dose interval, but a person is only considered fully vaccinated 14 days after the second dose is administered.

With the Phase 2 NIP rollout starting on April 19, this means its earliest recipients would only receive optimum protection from the vaccines beginning May 24. This corresponds to the 21st epidemiological week where severe cases among senior citizens reached its peak and began to fall.

The Phase 3 NIP rollout for the general population in the Klang Valley started on June 21, so the earliest recipients are only fully vaccinated on July 26.

Those who received the AstraZeneca vaccine on the first day of its opt-in programme on May 5, meanwhile, are scheduled to be fully vaccinated this Wednesday. The vaccine has a nine-week dosing interval under the NIP.

In light of the new data on hospital admissions, Noor Hisham reminded that people aged 60 and above in the Klang Valley who don’t already have a vaccine appointment can now get their vaccine on “walk-in” basis at any vaccine administration centre (PPV).

“In addition, PPVs will continue operating every weekend including public holidays.

“These actions are in line with the Health Ministry’s commitment to developing herd immunity as soon as possible,” he said.

Those who already have their vaccine appointments are urged to stick to their appointments. - Mkini