AMSTERDAM - The effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines in protecting vaccinated people against severe illness and transmission is declining somewhat, RIVM director Jaap van Dissel said to parliament on Wednesday, NOS reports. 

According to figures from public health institute RIVM, the vaccines now protect 94 percent against hospitalization and 97 percent against ICU admissions. These figures are slightly behind, Van Dissel said. He expects the effectiveness today to be 93 and 96 percent, respectively. "This means that the protection of the vaccines is still very high."

The vaccines' effectiveness in protecting against transmission dropped from 75 percent in June to 50 percent now, Van Dissel said. This means that vaccinated people can infect others more easily. The vaccines are still 75 percent in protecting against getting infected with the coronavirus. 

More people are being hospitalized in the big cities, Van Dissel said in the briefing to parliament. According to him, this has to do with a lower vaccination rate. "The connection between areas where the vaccination rates are low is a risk," he said. "If people from such areas infect each other, the number of hospital admissions can quickly increase."

Ernst Kuipers, head of acute care network LNAZ, told parliament that Covid-19 hospital admissions would reach 2,000 before the month is out. He stressed the importance of vaccines.

"They work strongly. You could calmly defend the statement that if everyone in the Netherlands had been vaccinated, more than a thousand of the current 1,300 admitted patients would not have been in hospital. Then 250 people would have been in hospitals, there would be nothing going on, and we wouldn't have had to spread them around," Kuipers said.