Estimating the risk of hospitalisation and death in England’s remaining unvaccinated population

Abstract

The roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines in the England has generally been very good – with over 80% of over 12s having received two doses of vaccine by the start of February 2022, and 67% having received a further booster dose. Despite this, there is a small section of the population who remain unvaccinated, either due to lack of access, hesitancy or resistant to vaccination. In this report we estimate that, during 2021, there were approximately 3,500 deaths in unvaccinated people, who could otherwise have reasonably been expected to receive a vaccination. Further, we show that if all of the remaining unvaccinated population in England were to become infected (or reinfected) with the Omicron variant of COVID-19, we would expect to see approximately 11,700 further deaths and 29,600 hospitalisations. These number could fall to 5,300 and 19,600 respectively, if all but the most vaccine resistant individuals become fully vaccinated.