Covid vaccination remains highly effective in Austria

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This is shown in the vaccination breakthrough report updated Wednesday by the Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES). According to data collected since February, the risk of symptomatic infection is reduced by at least 88 percent despite full immunization compared to those not fully vaccinated and unvaccinated. This is then mild and rarely fatal in almost all cases.

Since the beginning of February, out of a total of 175,815 laboratory-confirmed corona cases with symptoms among persons 12 years of age and older in Austria, 8,845 cases had been fully vaccinated (5.03 percent). Of these, 215 patients (0.12 percent of all cases) were hospitalized.

Proportionally, vaccination breakthroughs have recently increased. However, according to AGES, it is to be expected that with an increasing vaccinated part of the population, there will also be more vaccination breakthroughs. Within the past four calendar weeks 33 to 36, there were 5,704 infections in fully immunized individuals (23.08 percent) among 24,718 symptomatic cases. Fifty-four affected individuals were treated in hospitals, a 0.22 percent share of all cases, similar to the overall low since February.

Experts: Corona booster vaccination not necessary for all
The vaccine effectiveness of at least 88 percent is derived from a comparison of the proportion of fully vaccinated people with symptomatic infection with the proportion of fully vaccinated people in the population, the experts explained. The value from the beginning of February up to and including the last calendar week (week 36) was 89.11 for the age group 18 to 39 years. 40- to 59-year-olds showed 88.45 percent vaccine effectiveness and 60 years and older showed 89.61 percent.

Data from other studies and other countries also show that Covid 19 disease “is largely mild in fully vaccinated individuals, and hospitalizations and deaths are avoided,” AGES stressed in its update. Vaccine breakthroughs, according to the report, occur particularly in people with pre-existing conditions or compromised immune systems, in whom vaccination was unable to achieve immune protection.