>The 60-year-old, brought to hospital with oxygen saturations of 70% by the ambulance that he initially called for his partner, who had died by the time it arrived; both believed that the drug companies bribed the government to get the vaccine approved. As a respiratory doctor, I have spent my whole career treating people whose lung diseases have been caused by smoking, including long after they knew the risks. Most of all, however, I am now beaten back, exhausted, worn down by the continuous stream of people that we battle to treat when they have consciously passed up the opportunity to save themselves.
Cue anti vaxxers claiming fake news in 3,2,1…
> Translating this to the choice not to take the vaccine, however, I find my patience wearing thin. I think this is for a number of reasons. Even if you are not worried about your own risk from Covid, you cannot know the risk of the people into whose faces you may cough; there is a dangerous and selfish element to this that I find hard to stomach.
Selfish brats!
I have three relatives in the city‘s largest hospital. They all say its damning to see how as soon as someone enters the ICU for covid, they will not leave it alive. And almost all of them are unvaccinated.
People blaming the small group of antivaxxers for the failures of the government is the best trick they ever pulled.
In the Netherlands we went to a restricted summer and then they removed all covid-measures just before flu-season. Neoliberals even think health care could be handled counter-cyclical.
Should you be vaccinated? Yes.
Is this insane rise of covid infections, which is bigger than the waves when the vaccine didn’t exist, caused by the antivaxxers? Of course not.
Perhaps the claim “ICU is full of the unvaccinated” really is true for the anonymous doctor who wrote this piece, but it’s very curious to provide an anecdote when we actually have hard data into emergency hospitalisations by vaccination status. The latest [vaccine surveillance report](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1034383/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-46.pdf) shows that 32% of recent emergency hospitalisations are in unvaccinated people (3,200 out of 9,832, Table 4). Compared to the age-stratified vaccination rate this definitely shows a protective effect of vaccines, but nonetheless confirms that the “ICU is full of the unvaccinated” claim is hogwash, at least at the national level. The omission of that data, when it is so clearly-presented and easy to find, gives the impression that this piece is more to do with propaganda and less to do with accuracy.
**Edit:** It’s been pointed out that my source refers to emergency hospitalisations, which are not quite the same thing as ICU admissions, and that’s a fair point. Still, it’d be incredibly strange if we had 32% of recent emergency hospitalisations unvaccinated and 18% of recent deaths unvaccinated (675 out of 3,676, Table 5), but then >90% of ICU admissions to be unvaccinated, as the author of the piece implies. This would mean that – despite being a considerable majority of hospitalisations and deaths – vaccinated people somehow manage to complete avoid the ICU.
Guardian opinion articles really should be banned from being posted no matter what the context. Is no better than a blog for a source.
Where are they getting ‘the ICU is full of the unvaccinated’ from?
Table 4. COVID-19 cases presenting to emergency care by vaccination status between week 41 and week 44 2021
Total 10,179
Unvaccinated: 3,313
Table 5. COVID-19 deaths (a) within 28 days and (b) within 60 days of positive specimen or with COVID-19 reported on death certificate, by vaccination status between week 41 and week 44 2021
Total 2,948
Unvaccinated 587
*(Re-posting a slightly edited version of my previous comment, to put the argument more clearly)*
The claim that ICUs are full of unvaccinated people (let’s be generous and interpret that as >90%) is highly unlikely, for several reasons:
* The latest [vaccine surveillance report](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1034383/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-46.pdf) shows that only 32% of recent emergency hospitalisations with covid-19 are in unvaccinated people (3,200 out of 9,832, Table 4).
* The same report shows that only 18% of recent deaths with covid-19 are in unvaccinated people (675 out of 3,676, Table 5).
* Of course, emergency hospitalisations and deaths are not *quite* the same thing as ICU admissions. The data we have on admissions to critical care by vaccination status comes from ICNARC, whose most recent publication reported data from May to July 2021 (when the national double-vaccination rate ranged from 22.8% to 57%). [They report](https://twitter.com/ICNARC/status/1461810550061608963/photo/1) that 73.1% of ICU admissions in this time period were in unvaccinated people. It would be incredibly unusual for the proportion of unvaccinated ICU admissions to rise since then, given that the overall vaccination rate has increased since then, and the vast majority of older people are vaccinated. It’s almost certain that the proportion of unvaccinated people in ICU admissions has actually decreased since then (we’ll find out for certain when ICNARC publish the data for the most recent time period, ~4 months).
Now perhaps we can be very generous and suggest that the experience may still have been true for the anonymous doctor who authored this piece, and that the hospital in which they work is a statistical anomaly. However, the reader should most certainly **not** leave with the conclusion that ICUs are currently overwhelmingly occupied by unvaccinated people. Given that this is exactly the conclusion that they *will* leave with, based upon the wording of the anecdotes and the complete omission of the actual hard data we have, one starts to suspect whether this might be less to do with an accurate representation of reality and more to do with propaganda….
9 comments
>The 60-year-old, brought to hospital with oxygen saturations of 70% by the ambulance that he initially called for his partner, who had died by the time it arrived; both believed that the drug companies bribed the government to get the vaccine approved. As a respiratory doctor, I have spent my whole career treating people whose lung diseases have been caused by smoking, including long after they knew the risks. Most of all, however, I am now beaten back, exhausted, worn down by the continuous stream of people that we battle to treat when they have consciously passed up the opportunity to save themselves.
Cue anti vaxxers claiming fake news in 3,2,1…
> Translating this to the choice not to take the vaccine, however, I find my patience wearing thin. I think this is for a number of reasons. Even if you are not worried about your own risk from Covid, you cannot know the risk of the people into whose faces you may cough; there is a dangerous and selfish element to this that I find hard to stomach.
Selfish brats!
I have three relatives in the city‘s largest hospital. They all say its damning to see how as soon as someone enters the ICU for covid, they will not leave it alive. And almost all of them are unvaccinated.
People blaming the small group of antivaxxers for the failures of the government is the best trick they ever pulled.
In the Netherlands we went to a restricted summer and then they removed all covid-measures just before flu-season. Neoliberals even think health care could be handled counter-cyclical.
Should you be vaccinated? Yes.
Is this insane rise of covid infections, which is bigger than the waves when the vaccine didn’t exist, caused by the antivaxxers? Of course not.
Perhaps the claim “ICU is full of the unvaccinated” really is true for the anonymous doctor who wrote this piece, but it’s very curious to provide an anecdote when we actually have hard data into emergency hospitalisations by vaccination status. The latest [vaccine surveillance report](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1034383/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-46.pdf) shows that 32% of recent emergency hospitalisations are in unvaccinated people (3,200 out of 9,832, Table 4). Compared to the age-stratified vaccination rate this definitely shows a protective effect of vaccines, but nonetheless confirms that the “ICU is full of the unvaccinated” claim is hogwash, at least at the national level. The omission of that data, when it is so clearly-presented and easy to find, gives the impression that this piece is more to do with propaganda and less to do with accuracy.
**Edit:** It’s been pointed out that my source refers to emergency hospitalisations, which are not quite the same thing as ICU admissions, and that’s a fair point. Still, it’d be incredibly strange if we had 32% of recent emergency hospitalisations unvaccinated and 18% of recent deaths unvaccinated (675 out of 3,676, Table 5), but then >90% of ICU admissions to be unvaccinated, as the author of the piece implies. This would mean that – despite being a considerable majority of hospitalisations and deaths – vaccinated people somehow manage to complete avoid the ICU.
Guardian opinion articles really should be banned from being posted no matter what the context. Is no better than a blog for a source.
Where are they getting ‘the ICU is full of the unvaccinated’ from?
Because Public Health England figures disagree.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1032859/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_45.pdf
Table 4. COVID-19 cases presenting to emergency care by vaccination status between week 41 and week 44 2021
Total 10,179
Unvaccinated: 3,313
Table 5. COVID-19 deaths (a) within 28 days and (b) within 60 days of positive specimen or with COVID-19 reported on death certificate, by vaccination status between week 41 and week 44 2021
Total 2,948
Unvaccinated 587
*(Re-posting a slightly edited version of my previous comment, to put the argument more clearly)*
The claim that ICUs are full of unvaccinated people (let’s be generous and interpret that as >90%) is highly unlikely, for several reasons:
* The latest [vaccine surveillance report](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1034383/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-46.pdf) shows that only 32% of recent emergency hospitalisations with covid-19 are in unvaccinated people (3,200 out of 9,832, Table 4).
* The same report shows that only 18% of recent deaths with covid-19 are in unvaccinated people (675 out of 3,676, Table 5).
* Of course, emergency hospitalisations and deaths are not *quite* the same thing as ICU admissions. The data we have on admissions to critical care by vaccination status comes from ICNARC, whose most recent publication reported data from May to July 2021 (when the national double-vaccination rate ranged from 22.8% to 57%). [They report](https://twitter.com/ICNARC/status/1461810550061608963/photo/1) that 73.1% of ICU admissions in this time period were in unvaccinated people. It would be incredibly unusual for the proportion of unvaccinated ICU admissions to rise since then, given that the overall vaccination rate has increased since then, and the vast majority of older people are vaccinated. It’s almost certain that the proportion of unvaccinated people in ICU admissions has actually decreased since then (we’ll find out for certain when ICNARC publish the data for the most recent time period, ~4 months).
Now perhaps we can be very generous and suggest that the experience may still have been true for the anonymous doctor who authored this piece, and that the hospital in which they work is a statistical anomaly. However, the reader should most certainly **not** leave with the conclusion that ICUs are currently overwhelmingly occupied by unvaccinated people. Given that this is exactly the conclusion that they *will* leave with, based upon the wording of the anecdotes and the complete omission of the actual hard data we have, one starts to suspect whether this might be less to do with an accurate representation of reality and more to do with propaganda….