at Cochin hospital, patients in intensive care are now mostly “unvaccinated and quite young”

If the fifth wave of coronavirus is impressive in terms of contamination, it is less felt than the previous ones in the hospital. Around 8,500 people are still hospitalized in the country, but they all have a fairly similar profile. This is what Élise Chevrel, nurse in the intensive care unit at Cochin hospital, notes. “The last Covid patients we had were unvaccinated and fairly young people”, she explains. “Patients who were 52, sometimes 53, or in their thirties. There was another patient who was 33 and was pregnant. The only vaccine I had was immunocompromised, had cancer.”

The very rare serious patients who are yet vaccinated generally have an immunodeficiency, as noted by the head of the service, Professor Alain Cariou. “Their body does not know, despite the well-done vaccination, how to properly manufacture protective antibodies”, he explains. “Vaccination therefore does not protect them enough. These immunocompromised people are very few in number and we now know how to spot them.”

There are many vaccinated two doses and non-immunocompromised in the hospital but generally they have moderate forms of Covid-19. Vaccines protect 90% of serious forms, the intensive care unit therefore treats very little. “We had some very exceptionally”, recognizes Professor Cariou. “This is normal, studies had shown. The vaccine does not offer 100% protection against severe forms, it is almost 100%. So there is indeed once in a while , even if it is very exceptional, a subject who nevertheless develops a severe viral pneumonia despite a well-done vaccination “.

Recently, only one fully vaccinated patient is hospitalized. He has just left the intensive care unit. “He had a severe form, but ultimately of quite moderate severity. He did not need respiratory assistance, he did not need to be intubated”, says Professor Cariou. “My impression is that if this patient hadn’t been vaccinated at all, he probably would have had much more severe pneumonia.” For the moment, the intensive care unit has not received any patient whose vaccination has proved ineffective, weakening over time.