Unvaccinated people more likely to land in ICU: Karnataka War Room Chief issues warning

Skyrocketing coronavirus cases are severely impacting various parts of India. With the highly transmissible Omicron variant, people are more vulnerable to contracting the virus. After analysing the situation, Karnataka Covid-19 War Room Chief Munish Moudgil said that unvaccinated people are 10-times more likely to have manifested COVID infection than vaccinated.

Also, an analysis into the record of infections (from January 1 to 7) unveiled that unvaccinated people are more vulnerable and hence 30 times more likely to land in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or High Dependency Unit (HDU) than the vaccinated. 

Elaborating upon the said methodology, he said with 97 percent of citizens vaccinated and three per cent unvaccinated (if both were equally vulnerable to Covid), then for every 100 Covid cases or hospitalised cases, 97 people should have been vaccinated and three should have been unvaccinated.

“But proportionately unvaccinated constitute 10 times Covid patients and 30 times more in ICU than expected,” Moudgil added. As stated by him, vaccination surely helps to avoid Covid related complications. He also urged every eligible person to take Covid-19 vaccination.

Speaking about the possibility of an overwhelming majority of fully vaccinated patients, Moudgil added that many hospital’s general beds might be out of their own precaution. According to him, the actual number of people in the ICU is the ideal measure of comparison.

Notably, the online appointment for the precautionary dose of Covid-19 vaccine for frontline workers, healthcare workers and those aged 60 and above with co-morbidities started on Saturday night. All people belonging to this category of beneficiaries can book their appointment on the CoWIN portal.

Meanwhile, India has logged a single-day hike of 1,59,632 new coronavirus cases. With this the country’s Covid-19 tally now stands at 3.55 crores, including the 3623 cases of the Omicron variant. The total number of doses administered in the country have increased to 151.58 crore as per the Union Health Ministry.