... "This is the weekly audit of NHS ICUs. It only covers the period up to November 14th, but suggests that unvaccinated Covid patients in ICU are not placing an unmanageable strain on the NHS, as some health professionals have claimed.
On the contrary, as of November 15th, there were only 400 unvaccinated Covid patients in ICUs across the whole of NHS England and they were outnumbered by vaccinated patients.
Today the Prime Minister will be making a decision on further measures to limit social interactions by British citizens. Information leaked from SAGE appear to indicate the ‘scientific advisers’ to the Government are pushing him to reinstitute more aggressive social controls in an effort to control the virus.
... On Christmas Eve, the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) released an updated weekly report containing useful new information.
Readers may recall that until recently, ICNARC had not produced an audit of vaccination status in ICUs.
We now have data up to November 15th ...
... Readers should note that all patients included in this audit were suffering from the Delta variant.
The time period ends on November 15th, well before Omicron became established in the U.K.
Therefore, the debate around whether Omicron is more or less severe than Delta is irrelevant for the purposes of this commentary.
... Over this period vaccination uptake increased in the community from around 60% partially or double vaccinated in May to over 80% double vaccinated in November.
In May, 35% of the population were unvaccinated but 75% of ICU patients came from this cohort.
By November about 15% of the population were unvaccinated but they accounted for 48% of the ICU population.
... London has a consistently higher percentage of unvaccinated patients in ICU compared to the rest of the U.K. – in November about 60% of London ICU Covid patients were unvaccinated compared to a range in the rest of the U.K. of between 40 and 50%.
This probably reflects a lower vaccine uptake in the capital compared to the rest of the U.K.
... The first observation is that unvaccinated patients on ICU tend to be younger than the double vaccinated (a mean age of 49 versus 65).
... almost all of the patients in ICU under 40 were unvaccinated.
There tended to be more females in the unvaccinated group (42% vs 33%).
Blacks, Asians and other ethnic minorities made up 33% of the unvaccinated cohort, but only 14% of the vaccinated group.
This probably reflects lower vaccination uptake in these communities compared to the ethnically white British segment of the U.K. population.
... About 50% of the vaccinated patient group had serious pre-existing health conditions compared to 12.3% in the unvaccinated group.
Interestingly, the body mass indices were much the same in both groups.
... Unvaccinated patients represented about half of patients in ICU compared to about 15% of the general population.
Unvaccinated patients in ICU tend to be younger and healthier (before admission) than their vaccinated counterparts, half of whom were significantly unwell before contracting Covid.
Unfortunately, ICNARC have not yet provided information around mortality rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients.
I think it is probably reasonable to assume that unvaccinated patients, being generally younger and fitter than the vaccinated groups, are more likely to survive ICU.
... London has a higher percentage of unvaccinated patients in ICU (60%) than the rest of the country.
... Reports in the media claiming that 90% of the ICU patients in London are unvaccinated are not supported by this audit
... Otherwise healthy patients who are unvaccinated are at higher risk of contracting severe Covid than their vaccinated peer group.
However, the effect has been exaggerated by commentators in the mainstream media and the overall numbers are quite low (400 unvaccinated ICU patients in the whole of the U.K.)."
