By Chantalé Fletcher
THE Covid-19 death rate in the unvaccinated is 15.6 times higher than in vaccinated persons.
This according to Epidemiologist Dr Avery Hinds at the Virtual media conference of the Ministry of Health on Monday.
He made reference to the Covid-19 fatality rate up to January 12.
Dr Hinds said the 177 fully vaccinated persons who died compared to the total population of fully vaccinated individuals, was much lower.
“If you compare the over 2,500 deaths among the unvaccinated individuals with the unvaccinated population, there was a 15.6% fold increase compared to the vaccinated.”
He said that unvaccinated patients had a death rate of 40.69 Covid-19 deaths for every 10, 000 unvaccinated persons, while there was a Covid-19 death rate of 2.61 deaths for every 10,000 vaccinated persons.
Dr Hinds said, “The rate of death among the unvaccinated was significantly higher.”
He made reference to a 93.6% risk reduction in those vaccinated, saying this was not afforded to those who did not take up the opportunity to be vaccinated.
“If we look at the number of deaths that occurred among the unvaccinated since vaccination was a possibility, we could have prevented nearly 2,400 of those deaths, if that same 93.6% risk reduction was applied to that population,” the epidemiologist said.
Dr Hinds said “Vaccination has made a difference and could have a much bigger difference if it were heavily taken up. In spite of the misinformation that has been circulating, the global data and our local data, there were similar patterns where those vaccinated have over 90% reduction in their risk of dying from Covid-19.”
He added that vaccines saved lives, locally and internationally.
