Covid vaccines appear to have ‘broken link’ between infections, hospitalisations and deaths, NHS boss says

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Coronavirus vaccines appear to have “broken” the link between infections, hospitalisations and deaths, according to the head of an organisation representing NHS trusts.

Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said hospitals in Covid hotspots were coping with current levels of infection.

They were also seeing a “significantly” lower death rate among people admitted for treatment, he told Times Radio on Wednesday.

“If - and it is a big if - if Bolton has gone through its complete cycle and if others areas follow Bolton, the view from the hospital there was that they were able to cope with the level of infections,” Mr Hopson added.

Bolton is one of the areas in England which has been worst-hit by the Delta variant and saw a rise in hospital patients last month amid its spread.

Mr Hopson from NHS Providers said it was important to “look at who’s being admitted into hospital and how clinically vulnerable and what level of acuity they’ve got”.

“What chief executives are consistently telling us is that it is a much younger population that is coming in, they are less clinically vulnerable, they are less in need of critical care and therefore they’re seeing what they believe is a significantly lower mortality rate which is, you know, borne out by the figures.”

“So it’s not just the numbers of people who are coming in, it’s actually the level of harm and clinical risk.”

Mr Hopson - whose organisation represents NHS hospital, ambulance, community, and mental health trusts in England- said there was a degree of confidence that vaccines have “broken” the link between infections and the “very high level of hospitalisations and mortality we’ve seen in previous waves”.

His comments come days after Public Health England (PHE) data showed the number of Covid cases had risen among all age groups - with the largest increase among young people - amid the spread of the Delta variant, which was first detected in India.

Towards the end of last month, PHE released data suggesting Covid jabs had prevented nearly 40,000 hospital admissions and saved more than 13,000 older people’s lives in England.

Back in April, research suggested vaccines had helped to cut emergency admissions among at risk elderly patients by 76 per cent.