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SARS-CoV-2 vaccine protection and deaths among US veterans during 2021

Barbara A. Cohn, Piera M. Cirillo, Caitlin C. Murphy, Nickilou Y. Krigbaum, Arthur W. Wallace

2022 · Science

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From the abstract

We report severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine effectiveness against infection (VE-I) and death (VE-D) by vaccine type in 780,225 veterans in the Veterans Health Administration, covering 2.7% of the US population. From February to October 2021, VE-I declined for all vaccine types, and the decline was greatest for the Janssen vaccine, resulting in a VE-I of 13.1%. Although breakthrough infection increased risk of death, vaccination remained protective against death in persons who became infected during the Delta variant surge. From July to October 2021, VE-D for age <65 years was 73.0% for Janssen, 81.5% for Moderna, and 84.3% for Pfizer-BioNTech; VE-D for age ≥65 years was 52.2% for Janssen, 75.5% for Moderna, and 70.1% for Pfizer-BioNTech. Findings support continued efforts to increase vaccination, booster campaigns, and multiple additional layers of protection against infection.

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11 selected excerpts · 11 total mentions

fsh
Neutral mention · rule
Seasonality is just one of many factors that affect the spread of COVID. Blindly comparing the situation now with one year ago really doesn't make any sense. Vaccine efficacy against infection has been measured in a lot of studies, for example [1, 2, 3]. It has also been shown that being vaccinated reduces viral loads after infection, even with the delta variant [4, 5]. There are also a few studies on household transmission [5, 6] that show that transmission between vaccinated individuals is significantly less likely. [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2114228 [2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949410 [3] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620 [4] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01575-4 [5] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... [6] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6...
shmatt
Neutral mention · rule
Hospitalization and death numbers are definitely directly connected to how long its been since you got your shot. So for now, it does not seem like the whole long immunity/T-B-cell thing is happening with Pfizer/Moderna/J&J at least There is a very real per month affect, every month after your latest mRNA shot, your chances of getting seriously sick get a little bigger. After 6 months they get so big that scientists concluded its time for a booster. Now we wait and see, but so far things seem to be trending in the same direction, in Israel at least (so, no Moderna or J&J). Its not that we are only measuring titers. Its that vaccinated people are suddenly dying. So there…
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seems to be no or very low memory to making more titers Then, people get a booster, and boom, 90% lower chance of death again with high titers https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114228 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620 The veteran research which had 800,000 participants showed terrible long term results for J&J
CountDrewku
Neutral mention · rule
The only thing I mentioned that has anything to do with a study is the 3-6 month boosters. The rest is my personal choice to not take a booster. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34706170/ https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114114?query=fe... It looks like it possibly starts waning at 2 months. So if we're requiring everyone needs to be fully vaccinated with mandates then boosters start at 2 months to be safe. By that measure large portions of our population are not fully vaccinated at this point. No thanks...
T-A
Neutral mention · rule
> You're literally being a dunce Oh, what a surprise, more insults from somebody who can't even use the correct terminology and claims that "death rate" is "the most obvious and only relevant statistic when it comes to describing vaccine effectiveness". If you had ANY interest in facts, it would take you only a moment of thought to realize that neither the (correctly defined) death rate nor case fatality rate can be "the most obvious and only relevant statistic when it comes to describing vaccine effectiveness", since they make no distinction between people who were vaccinated back at the beginning of the year and people who just got their shots. You would then also…
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realize that "the most obvious and only relevant statistic" is case fatality rate as a function of time since vaccination. You would plot that with time since inoculation on the x axis and case fatality rate on the y axis. A few seconds of googling would then lead you to a couple of big recent studies: https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/health-research... https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/11/covid-19... https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... In short, protection against infection wanes rapidly, protection against hospitalization and death wanes more slowly, and booster shots help, as exemplified by the Israeli example. From the Science article: This phenomenon has been most comprehensively monitored in Israel, where high levels of transmission of the Delta variant led to a resurgent outbreak in mid-June 2021 (16), despite a successful nationwide campaign to vaccinate the population (17). Israel authorized boosters of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for adults age ≥ 60 years in July 2021 and extended this authorization to adults age ≥ 50 years in August 2021 (18). Rates of infection and severe illness subsequently declined in those who received a booster (19).
angelzen
Neutral mention · rule
polio vaccines != covid vaccines * Covid risk is highly age dependent. 1000x so. An unvaccinated kid has less chance of death than their vaccinated 40yo parent. Covid mortality is concentrated in the >50yo population. Please take a look at the very nice charts Singapore ministry of health put together to get a sense of the age-dependent behavior. https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/statistics * Covid vaccines do not fully stop transmission. Even the highest vaccinated places on Earth still have regular outbreaks in the winter season. At least a couple papers from reputable sources indicate that the vaccine effect on transmission is "negligible" after a few months.…
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https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264260v... * Vaccine efficacy against infection wanes over time, the medical literature estimates VEaI at 50% after 6 months. Fortunately, VE against severe disease holds much better. High risk populations greatly benefit from vaccinations. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01548-7 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114114 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949410 * Covid mutates: original, alpha, delta. Every time a new mutation took over, the vaccines have proven less effective. Where is the delta vaccine? * There is no bottom to how not effective a vaccine can be. UK epi data indicates negative VEaI for delta, and nobody has a definitive clue as to why, though many suspect statistical artifacts. Just to be clear, US and Germany epi data indicate the opposite, the only point here is that the possibility exists. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... To recap: polio: disease that mostly affects young people, crippling them for life, vaccines are highly effective in granting herd immunity and eradicating the disease. covid: disease that mostly affects old people, has almost no effect on children, vaccines cannot stop transmission, the disease is widespread and undergoing active mutations. If you are an adult, especially near or past retirement age, please strongly consider a covid vaccine for your protection. OTOH, it is not that clear that forced covid vaccinations for kids are a longterm net positive.
angelzen
Neutral mention · rule
There is a growing body of research indicating that VE declines over time. After 6 months the vaccines reduce the risk of getting covid by 2x, VEaI = 50%. Not sure where you picked the 10x number. (OA) US, veterans, 3 months VEaI = 78%, 6 months VEaI = 50%, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620 US, 5 months VEaI = 47%, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... UK, 3 months VEaI = 75%. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01548-7 Qatar, 3 months VEaI = 70%, 6 months VEaI = 12.8%, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114114 (preprint) Sweden, <50yo, 2-4 months VEaI = 83%, 4-6 months VEaI = 50%, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949410
angelzen
Neutral mention · rule
There are multiple studies that point to VE declining over time, to about 50% after 6 months. No further data is available. I do not understand why this vaccine behavior was not observed and documented by the original clinical trials, which were conducted over a period of 4 months (July-Nov 2020). The Pfizer FDA EUA application claimed a blanket 95% vaccine efficacy. https://www.fda.gov/media/144416/download (OA) US, veterans, 3 months VEaI = 78%, 6 months VEaI = 50%, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620 US, 5 months VEaI = 47%, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... UK, 3 months VEaI = 75%. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01548-7 Qatar, 3 months VEaI = 70%, 6 months VEaI = 12.8%, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114114 (preprint) Sweden, <50yo, 2-4 months VEaI = 83%, 4-6 months VEaI = 50%, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949410
legulere
Neutral mention · rule
The article does apparently only talk about attack rate efficacy/effectiveness. What is much more important in a population with high vaccination rates is the reduction of hospitalization and mortality which is much more long lasting with the vaccines. Edit: here are the graphs for mortality from the study: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620#F3

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