COVID-19-Impfung reduziert den Anteil der schweren Krankheitsverläufe bei den Versicherten der Berufsgenossenschaft für Gesundheitsdienst und Wohlfahrtspflege

Abstract

COVID-19 vaccination reduces the proportion of cases with severe progression among persons insured by the Berufsgenossenschaft für Gesundheitsdienst und Wohlfahrtspflege Objective: Health care workers are at increased risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 at work. We therefore investigated the development of vaccination rates among health care workers in Germany and the proportion of cases with severe COVID-19 progression in an ecological study. Methods: PubMed, Google Scholar, Google and the websites of the Robert Koch Institute and the German Medical Journal were searched for relevant publications on vaccination willingness and rates in Germany from January 2021 to September 2022. Furthermore, we evaluated reports on suspected cases of occupational diseases caused by SARS-CoV-2 in a database of the Berufsgenossenschaft für Gesundheitsdienst und Wohlfahrtspflege (BGW) as of August 2022. To estimate the severity of COVID-19, we analysed the proportion of hospitalised cases and cases resulting in compensation payments for injury and death. Results: Although vaccination willingness was low at the beginning of the vaccination campaign, the vaccination rate increased steadily during 2021. Recent surveys show vaccination coverage rates of well over 90 %. By August 2022, a total of 280,926 suspected cases due to COVID-19 had been reported to BGW. The proportion of cases resulting in hospitalisation decreased from 4.3 % in 2020 to 0.026 % in 2022, and the proportion of deaths also decreased from February 2020 to July 2022. However, the vaccination status of persons insured by BGW is not recorded in these statistics. Conclusions: Although the vaccination status is unknown, BGW data suggest that the severity of COVID-19 cases steadily decreased with increasing vaccination coverage. Keywords: health care workers – occupational disease – COVID-19 – vaccination willingness