A full vaccine could save thousands of lives in the UK

Apart from naysayers, vaccinations against Covid-19 are unanimous among people. There is history and numbers to prove how important vaccines are during the most critical phases of an epidemic.

Scientific studies help reinforce the important role of vaccines. This is the case with this article published recently in the journal The LancetOne of the most respected in the region.

Health Data Research (HDR) and the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) collected and analyzed vaccination data for the entire UK population between June 1 and September 30, 2022.

This is the largest survey ever conducted in the block. She proved it: If everyone had been vaccinated, thousands of lives would have been saved.

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Understanding the study

• The researchers accessed secure, anonymized National Health Service data on every person over the age of five — or about 67 million people.
• They were divided into groups according to age and pre-existing diseases, apart from the number of doses of vaccine.
• This data is submitted to a mathematical model that calculates how many serious and fatal diseases can be avoided during the almost four months analyzed.
• Upon accessing this data, scientists were surprised by the ridiculous number of people who only took the first dose of the vaccine.
• Effectiveness with regard to the first dose was almost exemplary: by January 2022, the United Kingdom had vaccinated more than 90% of the population over 12 years of age with at least one dose.
• However, second dose rates are much lower: 45.7% for England, 49.8% for Northern Ireland, 34.2% for Scotland and 32.8% for Wales.
• In total, in the region, we are talking about almost 30.5 million people.
• The researchers found that higher rates of vaccination occurred among men, young adults and those living in poorer areas.
• According to the mathematical model used by the scientists, of the 40,400 serious cases of Covid-19 recorded in the summer of 2022, at least 7,180 would have been avoided (this figure includes deaths and hospitalizations during that period).

Significance of this study for the future

Professor Sir Aziz Shaikh, Director of Research at HDR and co-leader of the study, explains that research of this scale will help guide public authorities:

“Large-scale data studies are essential to managing the epidemic. Covid-19 vaccines are saving lives. As new variants emerge, this study will help identify groups in our society and areas of the country where public health campaigns should be focused and adapted to these communities.”

Professor Cathy Sudlow, Chief Scientist at Health Data Research UK, added:

“The infrastructure is now in place to harness the potential of routinely collected data across four countries in the UK. We believe these approaches can be extended to many areas of medicine such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

Information from Medical Express Since New Atlas.