10% German intensive care virus patients are vaccinated

Around one tenth of the patients treated for coronavirus in German intensive care units in August and September were fully vaccinated, reported dpa.

The information was released by Germany's Ministry of Health in response to a question from Sahra Wagenknecht, a lawmaker from the hard-left Die Linke party.

The figure also roughly corresponds to earlier statements made by Health Minister Jens Spahn, who said last month that 90 per cent of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units were unvaccinated.

The ministry's response refers to the weekly reports of the Robert Koch Institute, which publishes the number of vaccination "breakthroughs" - defined as a coronavirus infection with "clinical symptoms" in a fully vaccinated person.

According to the report, a total of 11,419 Corona patients received intensive medical care between February and mid-September.

Of these, 210 were assumed to have had a vaccine breakthrough (1.84 per cent). In the period from mid-August to mid-September, 1,186 coronavirus patients were in intensive care units, in 119 of which a vaccination breakthrough was assumed, corresponding to 10.03 per cent of cases.

The president of Germany's intensive care association (DIVI), Gernot Marx, said patients with severe and fatal corona were unvaccinated in almost all cases. In addition, he said the vaccine breakthrough usually affects people whose "immune system is weakened, for example, by chemotherapy or long-term cortisone treatment, or who are older than 80 years of age."