Current Covid-19 hospital patients almost exclusively unvaccinated
Nearly all patients in hospital with Covid-19 have not been fully vaccinated, the AD reported. Official data on the number of vaccinated Covid-19 patients in hospital remains absent on a national level.
Out of 374 patients at the Erasmus MC since March 1 none had been fully vaccinated. “Sometimes a patient fell ill shortly after the first injection which is too early to have an immune reaction to the vaccine”, a spokesperson of the Erasmus MC said.
The Amsterdam UMC did count a few cases where people had already received two injections. “But these were patients who had just been vaccinated for the second time, therefore, protection had not been optimized yet”, a spokesperson said.
It remains difficult to provide concrete data, given that there is no registration of the vaccination status of admitted Covid-19 patients nation-wide. Therefore, the RIVM does not have a full overview as to how many Covid-19 patients that were admitted to hospital had been vaccinated.
Head of intensive care at the UMC in Groningen, Peter van der Voort called the missing oversight “very unfortunate”. “Especially towards autumn, it could provide a lot of information. It provides insight into which vaccines work best, whether immunity last and to what extent they protect against variants.”
According to Van der Voort, the RIVM should be the organization responsible for establishing the vaccination registration. “They really have an interest in it. Medical micro-biologist at the Elisabeth TweeSteden Hospital in Tilburg, Jean-Luc Mark agreed with Van der Voort, “If you really want to measure vaccine effectiveness you have to keep the data in order.”
Epidemologist at the RIVM, Susan van den Hof confirmed that vaccination status of Covid-19 hospital patients is not centrally registered in the Netherlands. “The GGD asks for the vaccination status, which also includes patients that have been admitted to hospital. Nonetheless, the GGD data is incomplete. Between January and April the GGD registered less than half of the hospital admissions the non-profit foundation Nice did, according to teh AD. The RIVM stated they are monitoring the situation closely.
