Hospitalization of younger COVID-19 patients rises in Turkey: expert.
Professor Tevfik Özlü, who also serves as an academic at the faculty of medicine at Karadeniz Technical University (KTÜ), said the number of patients in the age bracket of 25-35 being hospitalized was higher.
Turkey witnessed a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, amid a normalization process and despite its widespread vaccination program. The high numbers are blamed on the fast-spreading delta variant, people reluctant to get vaccinated and those who ditch mask and social distancing rules.
Özlü says all patients admitted to their hospital in the northern province of Trabzon for the coronavirus were either unvaccinated or had received one dose only.
“We have no patients infected with the coronavirus if they were administered both of their COVID-19 vaccine doses,” he said.
The professor noted that the hospitals used to be full of elderly COVID-19 patients together with infected health care workers in the past.
Health care workers were the first to receive their jabs when the vaccination program started in January. The program continued with the vaccination of senior citizens and earlier this summer, the country expanded it to include all people aged 18 and above.
“We have no infected health care workers hospitalized. This is because all of them are vaccinated. Even if they get infected, they recover with a mild case of the disease. Elderly people, if they had their third dose and were infected, also do not need hospitalization,” he told Ihlas News Agency (IHA) Friday.
He said the vaccine is very efficient and safe, and it is the only weapon Turkey has against the pandemic. “We lose more than 100 people to the coronavirus every day. We have to stop this,” he said.
On the declining age of patients, Özlü linked it to reluctance among the younger people to get their jabs. “Even the healthiest young people, people without any chronic illness, are infected. So, vaccination is a must,” he said.
He lamented that the vaccination rate in the country was still not sufficient. “The rate of people with both doses of vaccine and immunity against the virus is still around 35%. We have to raise it to somewhere around 75%,” he stressed.
