Three comparative data tell you why the elderly should get the new coronavirus vaccine?

On May 8, Beijing reported a critically ill patient, a 79-year-old man who had not completed two doses of the new crown vaccine.

For a period of time, severe, critical, and fatal cases of COVID-19 seem to have happened to "find" a group of people. Their common characteristics are: old age and incomplete completion of the full course of COVID-19 vaccination.

Such "coincidences" appear frequently in the statistics of many countries and regions. How high is the frequency? What is the probability of a seemingly "coincidence"? Relevant experts sorted out comparative data in three aspects for Science and Technology Daily reporters.

On April 20, elderly residents were vaccinated against COVID-19 at the Xidu Street Community Party and Mass Service Center in Fengxian District, Shanghai. Xinhua News Agency

252 times

When it comes to the new coronavirus, the elderly are a vulnerable group.

"In fact, no matter what kind of infectious disease it is, there will always be the elderly among the key groups most vulnerable." Wang Huaqing, chief expert of the immunization program of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, gave two reasons at a press conference. First, with age, the body's immunity declines, and second, the elderly have more underlying diseases and the impact is more serious.

Fragility is a foregone conclusion, but how vulnerable are they compared to young adults? Many countries have conducted comparative studies in this regard.

Zheng Zhongwei, head of the vaccine research and development task force of the scientific research team and director of the Science and Technology Development Center of the National Health Commission, cited research data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and gave a detailed stratified comparison - compared with young people aged 18-29, the risk of hospitalization for people aged 65-74 increased by 4 times and the risk of death increased by 65 times. The risk of hospitalization for people aged 75-84 increased by 8 times and the risk of death increased by 140 times. For people over 85 years old, the risk of hospitalization increased by 12 times and the risk of death increased by 340 times.

The risk of death has increased by hundreds of times, but many people may not have a concrete concept of it. To use a cross-disciplinary analogy, a meteorite as big as a football field hits the earth once every 3,300 years on average, and a person may not encounter it once in several lifetimes. If the risk of impact increases by 300 times, it will happen once every ten years, and a person may encounter it several times in a lifetime.

Data from Hong Kong confirms this research result: during the Omicron outbreak in Hong Kong, the risk of death for people over 60 years old was 252 times that of people under 30 years old.

It can be seen that when encountering the new coronavirus, the risk of death for the elderly increases significantly, which is not conducive to "running naked". This is why the average age of death of new coronavirus cases in many places is over 70 years old.

76 times

Among the risk factors for severe COVID-19 and death, advanced age and chronic underlying diseases are two factors that cannot be changed. So, are these people left to "run naked" in the face of the new coronavirus?

More and more data show that the new coronavirus vaccine, especially the third dose, can "arm" vulnerable people.

The latest data released by the Hong Kong Department of Health as of May 4 showed that the total mortality rate of the unvaccinated population was 3.04%, while the total mortality rate of the population that received three doses of the vaccine was only 0.04%, a difference of 76 times. This means that getting three doses of the new crown vaccine will greatly reduce the possibility of death after being infected with the new crown virus.

Undoubtedly, the biggest gap in the data comes from the "ratio between the old and the young". For young and middle-aged people armed with three doses of the new crown vaccine, the death toll column has been firmly occupied by "0", while the death toll of elderly people over 80 years old who have not completed vaccination is as high as 5,853.

Data from the mainland have also repeatedly confirmed the "arming capability" of the new crown vaccine. Among the severe and critically ill patients receiving treatment in a designated hospital in Jilin, the proportion of those who have not completed two injections of the vaccine is about 85%.

177 times

As mentioned earlier, according to the latest data in Hong Kong, the death toll of people over 80 years old who have not completed vaccination reached 5,853.

Thousands of people over 80 have died from the new coronavirus. Is there any hope for a turnaround in this situation?

Wang Guiqiang, director of the infectious disease department at Peking University First Hospital, told Science and Technology Daily: "After receiving three doses of the new crown vaccine, the mortality rate of people over 80 years old is very worthy of attention."

Data shows that after receiving three doses of the new crown vaccine, the number of deaths of Hong Kong elderly people over 80 years old dropped sharply from thousands to 33, which is 1/177 of the number of deaths of people over 80 years old who have not completed vaccination. Wang Guiqiang said this fully proves the necessity of the third dose of the new crown vaccine for people over 80 years old.

"Data from Hong Kong show that after the first, second, and third doses of the new coronavirus vaccine are received by people over 80 years old, the mortality rate of infection with Omicron will gradually decrease from 16.48% for those who are not vaccinated to 7.08% for those who receive one dose, 3.81% for those who receive two doses, and 1.2% for those who receive three doses." Wang Guiqiang said that, especially after the third dose is completed, the mortality rate drops to about 1%, which is of great significance to epidemic prevention and control.

Source: Science and Technology Daily

Author: Zhang Jiaxing

Editor: Mao Mengnan

Review: Wang Fei

Final judge: Chen Lei