On 25 January 2022, a study published by Zurich University Hospital found that 97% of Covid-19 ICU patients since the start of Switzerland’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign were unvaccinated.
The study evaluated hospital data from 964 Covid-19 patients who were treated in intensive care units in Swiss hospitals in the nine months since the start of Switzerland’s vaccination campaign. Of these only 33 (3%) were vaccinated with one of the two mRNA vaccines approved in Switzerland (Moderna and Pfizer). The other 931 (97%) were unvaccinated.
In addition, the overall condition of the vaccinated patients was better than that of the unvaccinated Covid-19 patients at the time of admission to intensive care. They had fewer lung problems, were less likely to need mechanical ventilation, had less impairment of their heart and circulatory function and suffered less from coagulation and kidney dysfunction. This resulted in an average length of stay six days shorter than among unvaccinated patients.
Matthias Hilty, a senior ICU physician, said that the data show impressively that vaccination against Covid-19 with mRNA vaccines has saved high-risk and seriously ill patients from the most serious forms of the illness.
More on this:
USZ press release (in German)
For more stories like this on Switzerland follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
J. Gasser says
Keep the propaganda train rolling as long as you can guys – but it’s going to crash. The truth about these ineffective and unsafe vaccines cannot be hidden forever. When is a Swiss media outlet going to have the balls to report on the hundreds of young, healthy Swiss people who got myocarditis after the covid vaccine? Or the 4700+ other people who had serious vaccine injuries or died? You’re all just going to ignore those Swissmedic.ch statistics? If you contract the virus it’s a 97% survival rate with death in the elderly population of people with at least 2 pre-existing serious medical conditions. Are you still going to tell the public (and the families of the young, healthy people that died from the vaccine) that the benefits of the vaccine outweighs the risk? We know this is a lie. The vaccine doesn’t prevent transmission, doesn’t reduce viral load, and has unprecedented side effects. The media is complicit in mass deception and contributed to the death/injury of healthy people who were never at risk from this virus. It’s time for the mainstream media to grow a conscience. Is investigative journalism dead? Are you all just mouthpieces for your government masters? What about your fellow citizens? Don’t you feel any moral obligation to investigate and report on the truth? Go and speak to the vaccine-injured. Report on the other side of this story. The narrative that “the vaccines are safe and effective” is a total LIE. History will not look favourably on those who supported this deception and buried the truth.
Le News says
According to Swissmedic, there have been 307 reports of myocarditis/pericarditis coinciding with Covid-19 vaccination after the administration of 14.5 million doses to 6 million people. Most (240) coincided with Spikevax (Moderna). Swissmedic goes on to say that the risk of myocarditis/pericarditis is substantially lower from vaccination than it is from Covid-19. In addition, Swissmedic reported that 192 people (out of the 6 million vaccinated) died around the time of vaccination, adding that there was nothing concrete to indicate that the vaccine was the cause of death despite the time correlation. Here are the latest Swissmedic statistics: https://www.swissmedic.ch/swissmedic/fr/home/news/coronavirus-covid-19/covid-19-vaccines-safety-update-11.html
Richard Golding says
Study period appears to be 9 months from January to September 2021 (precise start date is not specified but first double vaccinated people in Switzerland only appeared in early January 2021).
By end of April 2021, only 11% were double vaccinated i.e. 89% were unvaccinated with some only with a single vaccination (usually considered unvaccinated). By end of July 2021, the proportion passed 50% double-vaccinated. So this study only has 2 months (out of 9 months) do data with the majority double-vaccinated. Also, ICU patient volumes were much higher in the early months of 2021 so, given the low vaccination volumes in that period, it is only to be expected that the number of unvaccinated cases in ICU would be dominant.
Your article headline fails to reflect these realities and is extremely misleading.
What would help put it all into current context is to also publish latest data. For example – how many ICU patients have there been during January 2022 (vaccinated and unvaccinated)? This data is surely available and would better inform current thinking and decisions about policy.
I have seen other studies that conclude that the primary reason for cases being admitted to ICU is being immuno-compromised or with other comorbidities – whether vaccinated or unvaccinated – but individual patient case data is complicated.
Le News says
Thank you for your comment. As you correctly point out the data covers a period of high hospitalisation when only a minority of the total population was fully vaccinated. In an ideal hypothetical world, data on a representative sample of the population with a 50/50 split of vaccinated/unvaccinated over the entire period would produce a more meaningful result. However, in reality the data set used may not be as far away from this as it seems. If vaccination rates were risk adjusted based on age to better align them with ICU admissions then the resulting vaccination rate would be significantly higher, especially in the first half of the period when older people had priority. In addition, at some point during the period the rate of vaccination shifted above 50%, somewhat offsetting the effect of sub 50% vaccination rates earlier in the period. Unfortunately, the detailed data was not provided so these calculations could not be done. Also the Federal Office of Public Health does not provide a vaccinated/unvaccinated breakdown of ICU patients. If they did we would analyse it.
Richard Golding says
You say the FOPH does not provide a breakdown of vaccinated/unvaccinated ICU patients. I wonder why? You should ask them because the hospitals surely know.
Also, if such data is not available, how can anyone make any reliable conclusions on the impact of vaccination vs non-vaccination on ICU admissions? Anyone who tries to do so is surely neing irresponsible.
Le News says
The FOPH does not provide a breakdown of vaccinated/unvaccinated ICU patients but the Zurich Institute of Intensive Care Medicine did and it also provided an analysis of the data. In addition, it is clear that a time-averaged vaccination rate across the study period among the age group most at risk of needing ICU care would not be far off 50%, the rate required to remove the distortion you refer to. It was close to zero at the start and around 80% by the end. Assuming a crude time-averaged vaccinated/vaccinated split of 40%/60% and applying it to the 3%/97% split of vaccinated/unvaccinated ICU patients provided by the Zurich Institute of Intensive Care Medicine gives an ICU admission rate of 1 (vaccinated) to nearly 22 (unvaccinated). Take the 40%/60% to 30%/70% and the rate is still 1 to 14. Take it to 25%/75% and it’s 1 to 8. A similar calculation can be done on the most recent hospitalisations where the FOPH does provide data. Over the month of January 2022 the vaccinated/unvaccinated hospitalisation split was 45%/55%. Adjusted by the population percentages of vaccinated/unvaccinated of 85%/15% for the age band with a reasonable to high chance of hospitalisation yields a hospital admission rate of 1 (vaccinated) to 5 (unvaccinated). This analysis is far from perfect but it clearly points in a particular direction.
Sue Scoles says
Why do you write this without out any factual references or links to source data.? I have always valued reading your news updates but if you do your research you will find this article is pure propaganda. Very disappointed.
Le News says
Source material is available via the USZ source article at the bottom of the page. Here is a direct link to its publication on Springer: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00134-021-06610-z The work was done by the Institute of Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospital of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.