That campaign full of uncertainties that Araceli inaugurated on December 27, 2020 it is today a reality that it saved at least 450,000 lives; However, the slowdown in the vaccination against covid-19 with the second booster doses, in the middle of Christmas, is very worrying.
It is indisputable that the situation has nothing to do with what it was then, underline the vaccineology and public health experts: just see how these holidays are very different from those of the previous two years, marked by the restrictions. And this is also thanks to vaccines.
“Let’s hope the virus leaves us alone,” he longed for that cold morning Araceli Mora after receiving, very grateful, her first puncture at the Los Olmos residence in Guadalajara. Even if not entirely, his wish has been fulfilled.
A hundred deaths a day and saturated hospitals
That December 2020 more than a hundred people died in the state every day and the the hospitalization rate was about 10% in acute care beds and more than 20% in intensive care units; in 2022, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Health, it is respectively 3.28% (of which 44% are hospitalizations with and without covid) and 2.65%.
The the number of deaths per day is close to twenty; the vast majority are people over the age of 70followed by those over 60. Specifically, the risk groups for whom the second booster dose is a priority -along with people with immunosuppression-, but who don’t get as much as the first three.
Simultaneous flu and covid vaccine
The third dose coverage reached 92.7%; from the fourth campaign that began in September, a 54.9% of over-60s he received it.
But the simultaneous vaccination against flu and covid It will take this year to have the same flu coverage, we will stay there,” predicts Ángel Gil, professor of preventive medicine and public health at Rey Juan Carlos University.
Last year, flu has reached its record rate of 69.4%, is that enough for covid? “Unfortunately no”, replies the expert, who clings to recent infections, which recover that figure somewhat.
Gil is keen to clarify one thing: “Although the health centers are vaccinating at the same time, they must know that the covid vaccine is maintained over time throughout the year, so those people who have passed it and now cannot be vaccinated can do so later . .”
The recommendation is that those over 80 let about 3 months go by and those under that age, five. Nothing happens if they do it first, but during that time they are protected from the infection itself.
The pandemic has not passed
To the Spanish Vaccination Association concerned that pandemic fatigue has spilled over into vaccinationcomments its president, Jaime Pérez: “There is a certain tiredness of the population with vaccines“, also because “there have also been conflicting messages from the experts”.
There is also another reason, the feeling that omicron is less severe.
“Really omicron is no less serious,” he says; In fact, there is scientific literature which has verified that those who have been infected without being vaccinated with this variant have a similar severity to those who have been infected with the original from Wuhan, even if lower than its predecessor delta.
The differential data “is that we have 93% of the population vaccinated in the first vaccination and a large part received the first booster dose. This is what has radically changed the situation”.
Despite the general sentiment, the pandemic continues; More than 16,000 people have died in the state from covid since March, when the huge wave caused by omicrons endedwhich is “a true barbarity for the number of deaths that occur in our country“Watch the vacciniologist.
“It didn’t happen -Pérez ditch-. That doesn’t mean we can’t live with it, but we have to protect ourselves as much as possible and we have a great opportunity with vaccines”.
Towards the seasonal vaccine?
The fourth dose has recently been opened to those who want it, but the elderly are still at the center of appeals; Not in vain, unvaccinated people aged 60-79 are estimated to have a 14 times higher incidence of hospitalization to the vaccinated, 23 times more than hospitalization in intensive care and 16 times more than death.
A further concern is that the break coincides with Christmas, where the increase in interactions has always had its epidemiological impact.
In those of 2020, when no one had yet been vaccinated, 24 thousand people died, twice as much as the followingwhich were already much less restrictive, but a significant portion of the most vulnerable have had their first dose of memory.
As Gil explains, the endemic situation in which covid is entering means that there is a constant number of cases, but that does not mean that it is not there may be outbreaks“perhaps no longer glaring and accused as before”, but which force the continuation of vaccination in the most vulnerable.
Will they have to do it every year? “It is possible, it is a question that has yet to be seen; it is quite probable, and obviously, if we do not arrive at a vaccine that gives long-term protection, the doses will have to be administered as for the flu”. Pérez emphasizes on his part.
At least 450,000 lives saved
With those of now, the effectiveness of the the first booster dose relative to hospitalization decreases over timegoing from 85% or more in the first four months to 45% when more than 8 months have passed in people over 65 years of age.
The so-called hybrid immunity (conferred by vaccine and infection) also falls; Contagion provides 43% protection against infection, rising to 68% in people with primary vaccination and 83% in those with a booster dose.
As if the reasons that, especially the most vulnerable, have for getting vaccinated were few, another is added: according to an article published in the prestigious “The Lancet”, Vaccines have averted 19.8 million deaths worldwide, of which 456,200 in the state. And there are many more, since they are data from 2021.
So the message is clear: “this, thanks to vaccines, has taken a back seatLuckily we were able to return to normal life, to interact, to be together and not have major problems; We have managed to avoid many deaths and many hospitalizations, but we must continue to protect ourselves,” Pérez stresses.
Because, he concludes, it is “the only way to increase our safety against a disease that is the most serious thing that has happened to many of us in our entire lives”.
