According to the Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch (for YES), the covid-19 epidemic in the Czech Republic has become an epidemic of the unvaccinated. According to data on the spread of the disease in October, 74 percent are positive and 63 percent are hospitalized. If vaccination coverage increased, it would be possible to repeal “maybe tomorrow” all anti-epidemic measures, the minister said at a press conference today.
This week or next, according to a prediction presented by Ladislav Dušek, Director of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics (IHIS), the whole country will have an incidence of 300 cases of coronavirus infections per 100,000 inhabitants per week. The maximum value can be about 7,000 cases per week. By the end of the year, Dušek will have around 2,000 hospitalized with covid-19.
According to Vojtěch, there are younger people in hospitals than before, the average age of people in intensive care units (ICUs) is around 60 years. The average age of hospitalizations is 64 years, for those vaccinated it is 75 years. On average, intensive care units include people aged 61, vaccinated at age 74.
A year ago, there were 5,000 patients with covid-19 in hospitals at that time, and currently their number has exceeded one thousand. Over Friday last week and Monday, more than 4,200 new positive testers were added to the statistics. “If we were 100% vaccinated, we would see a maximum of one-third numbers,” said Dušek.
At present, 66 percent of people over the age of 12 in the Czech Republic have a vaccine for whom it is currently intended. It is 56.6 percent of the total population and 68 percent among adults. According to Vojtěch, the Czech Republic is below the EU average. Dušek added that neighboring Austria and Germany have about ten percentage points more, Portugal up to 90 percent.
The lower vaccination coverage of about 50 percent is in the younger generations, in seniors over 65 it is around 83 percent. However, after half a year, the effectiveness of vaccination is significantly weakening, according to experts, a strengthening third dose is needed. There are still about 400,000 seniors who have not had the infection and are not vaccinated. According to the chairman of the Association of General Practitioners Petr Šonka, many of them are not persuaded to be vaccinated. “In communication with the unvaccinated, it is known that these are people who have a negative attitude towards vaccination. Especially in the age group where we are most bothered and where we have focused on it for a long time. Most of them do not want to be vaccinated for various reasons. “said Impulse on Radio.
“The virus does not spread exclusively in the young population, it grows even in the middle age up to the age of 50, and it is starting to grow even among the elderly,” Dušek added. According to him, the probability of getting vaccinated is about 25 percent. The severe vaccine protects more than 84 percent in people over 65 years of age. “We see that elderly people who even get to hospitals do not need in the ICU,” he added to the effectiveness of the vaccine.
According to the pneumologist and Deputy Minister of Health Martina Koziar Vašáková, the virus is “getting smarter” by mutating. In the case of the more contagious delta mutation, which now predominates in the Czech Republic, 40 percent of those infected have symptoms with symptoms. If a person is hospitalized in the intensive care unit due to the difficult course of covid-19, he has only about a half chance of surviving, said Vašáková, who is also the head of the lung clinic at Thomayer Hospital.
She reminded that drugs for covid, so-called monoclonal substances, are available in the Czech Republic, but they must be administered at an early stage of the disease. They are also suitable for young people who, for example, have high blood pressure or are obese, they have also been given to children. The patient can receive them in about 80 hospitals that have an urgent admission, upon request from a general practitioner or specialist.