The Balearic health service says that the average age of Covid patients in intensive care units is currently 59 (58.8 to be exact). During the first wave of the pandemic it was over 70.
One of the factors to have influenced this decrease in age is vaccination. The vaccination rate for the over-80s is 100%. For the 70-79 age group it is 96.8%. This figure does decrease with age, so for the 50-59 age group, for instance, it is 85.5%. For all the age groups under 39 years, the percentage is 55.1%.
IB-Salut adds that 75% of Covid patients admitted to ICU have not been vaccinated. Joan Carles March, one of Spain's leading specialists in preventive medicine and public health, says that the fact that the percentage of non-vaccinated is 75% "corroborates the importance of vaccines in reducing the possibility of serious disease and therefore hospitalisation, admission to ICU and death".
"Almost half of Covid patients admitted to intensive care units in Spain are under 50 years old. The protection that the vaccine gives the elderly reduces by almost a tenth the average age of critically ill patients, more than 70% of whom have not received both doses."
In the case of the Balearics, March observes that the average age of Covid patients admitted to ICU is higher than the Spanish average, which is 51. In this regard he draws attention to, for example, the amount of obesity.