Covid-19 crisis How effective are the vaccine against covid?
The Ministry of Health issue a table each day showing the total cases for the past 24 days by vaccination status and severity of illness. 

(see table 1 below).

Some people observed that more of the cases are for vaccinated people. They draw the wrong conclusion that the vaccine actually increase the infection rate.

Infection rate

I produce table 2 below which compares the number of cases against the number of people in each category.

The infection rate per 1,000 people is 0.32 for fully vaccinated people, 1.35 for partially vaccinated people and 0.59 for unvaccinated people. (However, the infection rate for unvaccinated people increases to 3.38 if it is calculated for 200,000 unvaccinated seniors).

It shows that fully vaccinated people have a lower infection rate. 

At first glance, it appears strange that the infection rate lower for the unvaccinated people compared to the partially vaccinated people. 

There is a simple explanation. The unvaccinated segment comprise largely of younger people who are healthier and more resistant to the infection. 

Severity of illness

From table 1 (and reproduced in table 2), the infection is mild for fully vaccinated people, compared to the partially vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

The percentage of cases that develop into serious illness are 0.7% for fully vaccinated people, 2.6% for partially vaccinated people and 7.8% for unvaccinated people.

Conclusion

People who have been vaccinated have a lower infection rate and the infection are mostly mild. 

If we compare the fully vaccinated and the unvaccinated adults, the infection rate for the unvaccinated is roughly 10 times higher and the illness is 10 times more severe for the unvaccinated people, compared to the vaccinated people.

Tan Kin Lian




 

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