Israel said on Sunday the vast majority of patients who were being treated for COVID-19 complications with ECMO machines are unvaccinated.
While there is little information about the ratio of vaccinated and unvaccinated among patients hospitalized for COVID, the differences in that ratio among patients on ECMO are stark.
The Health Ministry said that fully vaccinated patients rarely require the treatment using the machine, which pumps and oxygenates a patient's blood outside the body, allowing the heart and lungs to rest.
The ministry said 212 out of 252 people who were on ECMO throughout 2021 and in the first month of 2022, were under the age of 60 and only 40 were older, due to the high rate of vaccination among older Israelis.
The data also shows that there is a 11.6 times more risk of serious illness developing among unvaccinated people over 60, compared to the vaccinated population in the same age group.
"People who are vaccinated suffer milder symptoms of COVID-19," chairman of the Israeli ECMO Association, Dr. Yigal Kasif said.
"There is something in the vaccine which prevents the virus from destroying the body's defenses. It is simple, vaccines work," he said.
"We spoke of this last year when there were small numbers of vaccinated patients in need of ECMO, but it is even more evident now," he said. "The most gravely ill need the ECMO machine after their lungs had collapsed.
"The machine oxidizes the blood in place of the lungs, and its use is clear indication of the gravity of the illness. During this fifth wave, we have not seen the same number of patients that we observed in the Delta wave, because more people were vaccinated and because the Omicron variant of COVID-19 settles more in the upper respiratory system and less in the lungs," he said.
According to the ministry, there are currently 18 people treated with ECMO machines, compared to 50 in the previous infection wave.
On Sunday, the ministry said that 33,374 new cases of the virus were confirmed a day earlier after 115,905 tests conducted, indicating a 28.79% positivity rate.
There are currently 1,263 people in serious condition being treated in hospitals, 291 of them on ventilators. Since the start of the pandemic, 9,139 people have succumbed to the virus.