The Academy of Medicine does not want to give up collective immunity so as not to aggravate “vaccine hesitation among the undecided”. In hospitals, young adults present almost as many complications risks as older ones, while Covid now represents nearly one in two work stoppages.
- The Academy of Medicine pleads to replace the health pass with a vaccination pass.
- Between January and May, Covid-19 became the leading cause of work stoppages, causing almost one in two (46%).
- Young adults arrive at the hospital with significant complications, some of which require further monitoring and potentially additional treatment in the future.
Since the start of the health crisis, collective immunity has been presented as the light at the end of the tunnel, the objective towards which to strive to get out of the epidemic. In recent months, due in particular to the Delta virus and its high contagiousness, this option seems more and more complicated to achieve. In mid-August, Alain Fischer, President of the Vaccine Strategy Orientation Council, thus agreed that collective immunity is “has become a very ambitious challenge”.
Transform the health pass into a vaccination pass
This Wednesday, the Academy of Medicine returned to the charge and calls for “don’t give up” to this objective, in a press release. The risk, she points out, is to reinforce “vaccine hesitancy in the undecided” and allow “the anti-vaccination movements to renew a faded argument”. For doctors, the epidemic will sooner or later come to an end with collective immunity which may be either post-infectious or post-vaccination. “The difference between the two strategies will be counted in years of health crisis and hundreds of thousands of deaths,” she writes to encourage the undecided to get vaccinated.
Herd immunity corresponds to a situation where a large part of the population is immunized against an infection leading in fact to the extinction of the epidemic. With the Delta variant, some scientists consider this immunity attainable on the sole condition that at least 90% of the population is protected against new infections. However, the vaccine does not completely immunize because, even if there is much less chance of catching the disease once vaccinated, it is still possible. It is therefore likely that an even higher share of vaccination in the population will have to be achieved to achieve it.
To achieve this, the Academy advocates replacing the health pass with a vaccination pass. She also says she is in favor of “assess, as soon as second-generation vaccines are authorized, the benefit of administering them as boosters to better prevent transmission”.
One out of two work stoppages caused by Covid
While waiting for immunity, the virus continues to circulate and disrupt the lives of employees. Between January and May, Covid-19 became the leading cause of work stoppages, causing almost one in two (46%). Overall, the number of employees having had at least one work stoppage increased by three points (+30%) over the period studied, “from 10% of employees in January to 13% in May”, specifies Malakoff Humanis who carried out the survey. Last April, the peak was reached with 52% of work stoppages linked to Covid-19.
Behind the coronavirus, accidents or trauma (21%) were the main reason for sick leave. Next come psychological disorders (depression, anxiety, stress) and professional exhaustion or burn-out, which together account for 19% of stoppages. Serious illnesses caused 12% of stoppages, as did musculoskeletal disorders.
Young people, more and more present in the hospital
In the hospital, with the Delta variant, things have changed for young adults. If they have less risk of developing a severe form of Covid-19, they are, once hospitalized, as likely to suffer from complications as those over 50. “It is not just a disease of the elderly and frail”, recalls Professor Calum Semple, epidemiologist and author of the study published on July 17 in The Lancet. He and his team of researchers looked at 73,197 adults of all ages in 302 UK hospitals during the first wave of Covid in 2020, before vaccines became available and new variants were detected.
The results revealed that around half of the adult patients suffered from at least one complication during their hospital stay, the most common being kidney injury, followed by lung and heart injury. The over 50s are 51% to have declared at least one problem. For those aged 30-39, this figure rises to 37%. This rises to 44% among 40-49 year olds. Among 19-49 year olds, 4 out of 10 people developed kidney, lung or other organ problems during treatment.
“The data reinforces that Covid is not a flu and we are even seeing young adults arriving at hospital with significant complications, some of which require further monitoring and potentially additional treatment in the future.”, insists Calum Semple. Research has shown that 13% of 19 to 29 year olds and 17% of 30 to 39 year olds hospitalized with Covid were unable to manage on their own upon discharge from hospital and had to rely on loved ones.
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