Nearly three-quarters of Covid hospital patients under 50 are unvaccinated

Some 9,472 people were admitted to English hospitals with the highly transmissible Delta variant of coronavirus between 1 February 2021 and 29 August

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Nearly three-quarters of Covid hospital patients aged under 50 have not had the vaccine, data from Public Health England reveals.

Figures showed that most coronavirus-related deaths among younger people also happened to those who had not had their first dose of the vaccine.

Some 9,472 people were admitted to English hospitals with the highly transmissible Delta variant of coronavirus between 1 February 2021 and 29 August.

Of those, 5,098 people were under 50. Some 3,742 – or 73 per cent – of the under 50s were unvaccinated.

Fourteen per cent had received one dose of the jab and a further 10 per cent had received both doses.

The PHE data includes cases picked up via routine testing whose primary cause of admittance to hospital is not Covid-19.

Excluding these infections, some 2,938 under-50s were hospitalised because of Covid. Of those, 2,070 were unvaccinated, or 70 per cent.

The figures come as ministers look likely to approve the vaccination of healthy 12- to 15-year-olds against coronavirus after asking the UK’s chief medical officers to review the evidence for a mass roll-out.

Sage member Professor John Edmunds said on Saturday that there could be “a lot of disruption” to education if the scheme did not go ahead.

The Delta variant is still overwhelmingly dominant across the UK and now makes up 99 per cent of cases.

Almost two-thirds of the UK population has been fully vaccinated but the rate of coverage is higher in older age groups.

Data showed that among the 4,374 over-50s hospitalised between 1 February and 29 August, 1,322 – or 30 per cent – were unvaccinated.

A significant 61 per cent of this older age group had been given their second jab.

This is because, in the general population, more older people have been double-vaccinated.

Of the 154 deaths of people under 50 recorded, 64 per cent were unvaccinated.

Last week, the widowed husband of unvaccinated mother-of-four Samantha Willis urged people to get the coronavirus vaccine “so you or your family don’t have to go through what I have had to”.

Josh Willis went on social media to issue his plea, saying: “As I write this I am laying beside her, she is 35, unvaccinated and in a coffin. Let that sink in!

“It’s real, the numbers are real. Get your vaccine so you or your family don’t have to go through what I have had to.”

He described his wife as a “wonderful, loving and careful person” who had been “our superhero the last few weeks. She is now our guardian angel.”

This article was amended on 6 September 2021. The previous version incorrectly stated that 9,472 people had been admitted to English hospitals with the delta variant of coronavirus in the week leading up to 29 August, whereas in fact these people were admitted between 1 February and 29 August 2021. Information was also added to distinguish between those admitted to hospital because of Covid-19, and those who were admitted for a different primary reason but whose covid infection was subsequently picked up via routine testing.