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In response to: Most of the resources we are devoting to Covid in hospital are being spent on people who have not had their jab

In hospital, Covid-19 has largely become a disease of the unvaccinated. The man in his 20s who had always watched what he ate, worked out in the gym, was too healthy to ever catch Covid badly. The 48-year-old who never got round to making the appointment.

The person in their 50s whose friend had side-effects. The woman who wanted to wait for more evidence. The young pregnant lady worried about the effect on her baby.

The 60-year-old, brought to hospital with oxygen saturations of 70% by the ambulance that he initially called for his partner, who had died by the time it arrived; both believed that the drug companies bribed the government to get the vaccine approved.

All severely ill with Covid. All unvaccinated and previously healthy. All completely avoidable.

Of course, there are people who have their vaccinations but still get sick. These people may be elderly or frail, or have underlying health problems. Those with illnesses affecting the immune system, particularly patients who have had chemotherapy for blood cancers, are especially vulnerable. Some unlucky healthy people will also end up on our general wards with Covid after being vaccinated, usually needing a modest amount of oxygen for a few days.

But the story is different on our intensive care unit. Here, the patient population consists of a few vulnerable people with severe underlying health problems and a majority of fit, healthy, younger people unvaccinated by choice. Watching the mix of patients coming in with Covid, it feels to me like hardly anybody has been vaccinated nowadays; of course, this is because the people that have been vaccinated are getting on with their lives at home. If everyone got vaccinated, hospitals would be under much less pressure; this is beyond debate. Your wait for your clinic appointment/operation/diagnostic test/A&E department would be shorter. Your ambulance would arrive sooner. Reports of the pressure on the NHS are not exaggerated, I promise you.

Most of the resources that we are devoting to Covid in hospital are now being spent on the unvaccinated.

Yes, vaccinations are unpleasant. They cause side-effects. They hurt. You may even still catch Covid afterwards. I have many colleagues who have felt awful after vaccination and a few who had to take a day or two off work. However, I have not heard of any who have been hospitalised with Covid afterwards or who have had severe side-effects. The approvals process was incredibly stringent and we now have an unbelievable amount of real-world data that these vaccines work. The science that has been applied here is nothing short of awe-inspiring to me. However, I realise that none of these rational arguments would change the mind of someone who is resolved against having it, although I suppose it may push someone who remains undecided.