Worrying finding of the Austrian Corona Commission: The number of fully vaccinated people who end up in hospital because of the corona virus is increasing. This emerges from an internal document available to the APA news agency.

In the intensive care units in Austria, the vaccinated corona patients currently make up 17 percent. On the normal wards it is even 31 percent. According to the document, those numbers could indicate that vaccination protection is waning.

Austria has already started booster vaccinations with the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. People who are over 65 years of age or at risk and have been vaccinated with one of these substances can already register. All Austrians who have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine once are allowed to receive a booster with one of the mRNA vaccines.

But it is really the declining vaccination protection that is causing the proportion of vaccinated people in hospitals to rise. Or is it simple math?

The «courier» argues in favor of the second explanation. Because if the vaccination rate increases, the absolute number of vaccination breakthroughs and the number of severe courses in vaccinated persons also increase. At the same time, the number of unvaccinated people who can become infected at all is falling. And thus also the number of those who have to die in hospital.

The Austrian daily newspaper illustrates the math with a simple example: If 100 percent of the population are vaccinated, 100 percent of the patients who go to hospital because of corona are also vaccinated.