. 2021 Dec;26(48):2101030.

doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.48.2101030.

Initial assessment of the COVID-19 vaccination's impact on case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths in people aged 80 years and older, 15 EU/EEA countries, December 2020 to May 2021

Nathalie Nicolay¹, Francesco Innocenti^{1

2}, Julien Beauté¹, Veronika Učakar³, Marta Grgič Vitek³, Eero Poukka⁴, Tuula Hannila-Handelberg⁴, Charmaine Gauci⁵, Tanya Melillo⁵, Theano Georgakopoulou⁶, Jiri Jarkovsky⁷, Pavel Slezak⁸, Concepción Delgado-Sanz⁹, Carmen Olmedo-Lucerón¹⁰, Heleene Suija¹¹, Rasa Liausediene¹², Piaras O'Lorcain¹³, Niamh Murphy¹³, André Peralta-Santos¹⁴, Pedro Casaca¹⁴, Ioanna Gregoriou¹⁵, Nick Bundle¹, Gianfranco Spiteri¹, Giovanni Ravasi¹

Affiliations

¹ European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Solna, Sweden.
² Epidemiology Unit, Regional Health Agency of Tuscany, Florence, Italy.
³ National institute of Public Health, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
⁴ Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland.
⁵ Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Directorate, Msida, Malta.
⁶ Department of Epidemiological Surveillance and Intervention of the National Public Health Organization (NPHO), Athens, Greece.
⁷ Data analysis department, Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czechia.
⁸ Department of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, National Institute of Public Health, Prague, Czechia.
⁹ National Epidemiology Centre, CIBERESP, Institute of Health Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
¹⁰ Area Immunisation Programme. Ministry of Health, Madrid, Spain.
¹¹ Department of Communicable Diseases, Health Board, Tallin, Estonia.
¹² National Public Health Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania.
¹³ Health Protection Surveillance Centre, Dublin, Ireland.
¹⁴ Directorate of Information and Analysis, Directorate-General of Health, Lisbon, Portugal.
¹⁵ Ministry of Health, Nicosia, Cyprus.

PMID: 34857068
PMCID: PMC8641072
DOI: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.48.2101030

Initial assessment of the COVID-19 vaccination's impact on case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths in people aged 80 years and older, 15 EU/EEA countries, December 2020 to May 2021

Nathalie Nicolay et al. Euro Surveill. 2021 Dec.

. 2021 Dec;26(48):2101030.

doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.48.2101030.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Solna, Sweden.
² Epidemiology Unit, Regional Health Agency of Tuscany, Florence, Italy.
³ National institute of Public Health, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
⁴ Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland.
⁵ Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Directorate, Msida, Malta.
⁶ Department of Epidemiological Surveillance and Intervention of the National Public Health Organization (NPHO), Athens, Greece.
⁷ Data analysis department, Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czechia.
⁸ Department of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, National Institute of Public Health, Prague, Czechia.
⁹ National Epidemiology Centre, CIBERESP, Institute of Health Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
¹⁰ Area Immunisation Programme. Ministry of Health, Madrid, Spain.
¹¹ Department of Communicable Diseases, Health Board, Tallin, Estonia.
¹² National Public Health Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania.
¹³ Health Protection Surveillance Centre, Dublin, Ireland.
¹⁴ Directorate of Information and Analysis, Directorate-General of Health, Lisbon, Portugal.
¹⁵ Ministry of Health, Nicosia, Cyprus.

PMID: 34857068
PMCID: PMC8641072
DOI: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.48.2101030

Abstract

Prioritisation of elderly people in COVID-19 vaccination campaigns aimed at reducing severe outcomes in this group. Using EU/EEA surveillance and vaccination uptake, we estimated the risk ratio of case, hospitalisation and death notifications in people 80 years and older compared with 25-59-year-olds. Highest impact was observed for full vaccination uptake 80% or higher with reductions in notification rates of cases up to 65% (IRR: 0.35; 95% CI: 0.13-0.99), hospitalisations up to 78% (IRR: 0.22; 95% CI: 0.13-0.37) and deaths up to 84% (IRR: 0.16; 95% CI: 0.13-0.20).

Keywords: COVID-19; health impact assessment; mass vaccination; vaccination uptake.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

**Figure 1**
Incidence rate for case notifications in those 80 years and older, incidence rate ratio in those 80 years and older versus in 25–59-year-olds, and vaccine uptake of at least one dose or full vaccination in those 80 years and older by country, 15 EU/EEA countries, week 48 2020−week 20 2021

**Figure 2**
Adjusted incidence rate ratios for those 80 years and older versus 25–59-year-olds for case, hospitalisation and death notification rates, 15 EU/EEA countries^a, week 48 2020−week 20 2021

**Figure 3**
Incidence rate for hospitalisations in those 80 years and older, incidence rate ratio of hospitalisations in those 80 years and older versus 25–59-year-olds, and vaccine uptake of at least one dose or full vaccination in those 80 years and older by country, 15 EU/EEA countries, week 48 2020 to week 2 2021

**Figure 4**
Incidence rate for deaths in those 80 years and older, incidence rate ratio of deaths in those 80 years and older versus 25–59-year-olds, and vaccine uptake of at least one dose or full vaccination in those 80 years and older by country, 15 EU/EEA countries; week 48 2020 to week 20 2021

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Initial assessment of the COVID-19 vaccination's impact on case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths in people aged 80 years and older, 15 EU/EEA countries, December 2020 to May 2021

Affiliations

Initial assessment of the COVID-19 vaccination's impact on case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths in people aged 80 years and older, 15 EU/EEA countries, December 2020 to May 2021

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

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