Fairfax has compiled interesting data from NSW illustrating how COVID vaccines have dramatically helped to lower COVID cases, hospitalisations and deaths:
According to the most recent data from NSW Health’s COVID-19 surveillance report, more than 10 per cent of new cases in the week ending October 2 were fully vaccinated.
Despite rising vaccination coverage among cases and the general population – on October 2, about 66 per cent of NSW residents aged 16 and over were double-dosed – the proportion of people in hospital with COVID-19 who were fully vaccinated was only 5.2 per cent.
At least two-thirds of hospitalised cases had received no effective dose (either a first dose within three weeks of infection or no vaccine at all) and the vaccination status of one in five cases was still under investigation…
In recent weeks, children aged zero to nine, currently ineligible for the vaccine, have been the age group most likely to contract COVID-19.
However, over the course of the outbreak, only 5 per cent of cases aged under 10 have been hospitalised, often for caregiving reasons, compared to about one in five cases in their 40s and one in four in their 50s.
The next chart showing data from NSW Surveillance Reports shows similar results:
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
