COVID19: Rapid rise in number of patients

As the government meets on Wednesday to rubberstamp new measures proposed by health experts to stem a resurgence of the coronavirus, with daily cases nearing 500, the number of COVID-19 patients needing hospitalisation is rapidly growing.

According to the State Health Services Organisation (OKYPY), the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals in the past three days has been above 100. On Tuesday night, some 115 COVID patients were admitted in hospitals across the island.

In comments to Phileleftheros daily, OKYPY spokesperson Charalambos Charilaou said that the number of daily admissions of COVID patients in the past three days totalled 15, compared to eight the previous week.

He added that eight people are being discharged every day.

Charilaou said that with the rate with which patients are being admitted to hospitals in recent days “we can expect to see that we will remain in three-digit numbers over the next days”.

Meanwhile, some 19 patients were in ICUs on Tuesday night, compared to 13 at the end of last week.

Charilaou said that at any given time an average of 60-65% of patients in hospitals have not received a COVID-19 jab.

He told Phileleftheros that one needs to analyse this data, adding that “the median age of the vaccinated patients who are hospitalised is about 69 years”.

“We are talking about people who have received both doses of a vaccine. Beyond any doubt this data shows us where we should be focussing on administrating booster shots – to people in the 60 plus age group”.

The OKYPY spokesperson also noted that most vaccinated patients who are in need of hospitalisation, had completed their initial vaccination scheme some 5.5 months earlier.

Charilaou said that the average age for non-vaccinated patients finding themselves in hospitals is 64.6 years.

He added that a total of 522 patients with coronavirus had died in 2021. The cause of death of 462 was the coronavirus, of which 64 were fully vaccinated (mostly over 65) and 40 had received only one dose.