Australia’s Delta Outbreak Data Show Vaccines Protect Against Hospitalization

Early data from Australia's outbreak of the COVID-19 Delta variant suggest that two vaccine doses offer significant protection against severe illness and hospitalization, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Health authorities in Sydney said that no one who has received two doses of a vaccine needed to be hospitalized. According to data, of the 47 people in the hospital, 37 have not been vaccinated.

Four people who were in the hospital got one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine and one person got one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

The other five people received two Pfizer/BioNTech doses, but they are nursing-home residents who were admitted as a precautionary measure.

Despite being small by global standards, Sydney's outbreak provides a view into how quickly the Delta variant can spread in a lightly vaccinated population despite lockdown measures, mask mandates and social distancing, the news source said.

More than 550 people have fallen ill since the outbreak began in mid-June and new cases have climbed in recent days even though the city has been locked down for two weeks.