It seems obvious right? The countries that have given more of their populous the Covid vaccine have fewer deaths from Covid, and often fewer cases.
Though this makes complete sense, the significant amount of people who are unwilling, or at least lack urgency, to get their jab means that it is worth looking at.
Widespread vaccination is the principle reason behind the current low levels of Covid restrictions we currently enjoy. Despite stubbornly high Covid rates in the UK, deaths and serious illness have remained low enough that the NHS has not been overwhelmed and society is able to remain open.
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And though vaccine uptake is high in the UK, some parts of the world have even high rates and are seeing the benefits. With 46.5 million people double jabbed in the UK there are over 10 million people are not (though some are not eligible due to age or health). This means there is still a significant pool for the virus to circulate within and put unnecessary pressure on the health service.
WalesOnline has gone through the data for some of the countries with the highest levels of vaccination to see what benefits they are seeing.
The countries we have included are Bulgaria (one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe), Portugal (the highest vaccination rate in the world at almost 90%), France (a higher vaccination rate than the UK and vaccine passports required in many public places), Japan (almost no Covid cases at the moment), Germany (huge cases numbers but good vaccination rates), Cuba (one of the highest rates of double jab in the world), USA (amount of people fully vaccinated under 60%) and the UK.
The charts below show both the amount of cases, and the amount of deaths based on population:
As you can see, France, UK and Germany have by far the most new cases in recent weeks whereas Portugal (which is more vaccinated) is significantly lower. Bulgaria by contrast has significantly fewer cases. So the vaccines are not working then? Well no.
If you look at the second chart you can see that despite have far few cases, the amount of deaths in Bulgaria (which is under 25% fully vaccinated) is easily the highest. The second highest amount of deaths is the USA with its lower vaccination rates, again this despite having a lower case rate than many countries in Europe.
Now as with everything Covid, there are a lot of things at play here. Establishing cause and effect is difficult because of all the variables. These can include:
- How long ago everyone was jabbed (immunity can wane)
- The age of population
- The age of the people catching the virus (young people are far les likely to die)
- The temperament of the people in a country (people in Japan are more likely to follow rules such as mask wearing for example)
But is is clear that the countries with high levels of vaccinations are clearly able to tolerate a higher rate of Covid before the effects are felt in their health services.
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