Worlds most vaccinated country still struggles with high Covid case rate – Evening Standard

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he world's most vaccinated country is still struggling with a huge Covid case rate.

However, its seven day case rate remains 1,624 per 100,000.

For comparison, the UK's seven day case rate is 23.2 as of May 19.

This means that the Seychelles remains on the UKs red list.

The island's economy relies heavily on tourism. In 2019, nearly 400,00 people visited the island, four times more than its population of 97,625.

Despite the current high case rate, the island had been largely spared the ravages of the pandemic, with just 35 deaths recorded. The current high case rate has been attributed to people letting their guard down over Easter, according to the country's tourism board.

Around 33 per cent of those infected in the Seychelles have been fully vaccinated. The island is using the AstraZeneca vaccine, the Chinese-made Sinopharm, as well as the Russian Sputnik V.

Around 80 per cent of those hospitalised had not been vaccinated at all

While Covid vaccines dramatically decreases mortality rate, it is less effective against contracting Covid.

Indeed, around 80 per cent of those hospitalised had not been vaccinated at all, and the majority had underlying health conditions.

Murray Collins, Director of Blue Safari Seychelles, slammed media scaremongering for damaging the island's economy.

The spike in positive Covid-19 cases in the Seychelles are from those people who have not been vaccinated or those with comorbidities, he told Telegraph Travel.

The majority of news sources are simply focusing on the increase in the numbers and not the bigger picture. Given the small size of the population in the Seychelles, any increase in numbers will be reported as per capita, which proportionally produces a far higher figure compared to a country with a higher population, such as the UK. This results in a distorted overall percentage, which led to the UK government keeping the Seychelles on the red list and is nothing short of catastrophic.

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Worlds most vaccinated country still struggles with high Covid case rate - Evening Standard