The UK could have averted more than 7,000 Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths over a four-month period in 2022 if people had received the recommended number of vaccines.
The first British study of its kind, published Monday in the medical journal The Lancet, found that 44% of the population hadn’t gotten enough protective shots by June of that year. The first vaccines were rolled out in December 2020.
The research comes as the UK Health Security Agency urges people at risk to get vaccinated against Covid and seasonal flu as cases of both are on the rise, almost four years after the pandemic was first declared. While uptake of the Covid-19 vaccine was high when the shots were first rolled out, demand has waned. The new study indicates that ensuring people who are at risk of severe disease get booster shots could still prevent thousands of deaths and hospitalizations.