"Monitoring Incidence of COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations, and Deaths, by Vaccination Status — 13 U.S. Jurisdictions, April 4–July 17, 2021"
> Age-standardized IRRs for cases in persons not fully vaccinated versus fully vaccinated decreased from 11.1 (95% CI = 7.8–15.8) during April 4–June 19 to 4.6 (95% CI = 2.5–8.5) during June 20–July 17, while IRRs decreased slightly from 13.3 (95% CI = 11.3–15.6) to 10.4 (95% CI = 8.1–13.3) for hospitalizations and from 16.6 (95% CI = 13.5–20.4) to 11.3 (95% CI = 9.1–13.9) for deaths during the same two periods.
The study found that effectiveness dropped to 80% for patients over the age of 65, while for younger patients, the vaccines were 95% effective.
Let that sink in for a moment...
The best way to boost overall vaccine effectiveness is to extend it lower risk groups - healthy children and young people - regardless of whether they really need it or not.
For the low risk groups it's a small absolute risk reduction of hospitalisation, and extremely small absolute risk reduction of death. But given that herd immunity is now impossible to achieve, the long term impact on the high risk groups will be limited.
I expect what could see is stubbornly elevated hospitalization and deaths in the high risk groups :( Bad for them but also bad because the way that politicians trying to drive health policy under mistaken assumptions will react.
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 71.0 ms ] thread"Monitoring Incidence of COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations, and Deaths, by Vaccination Status — 13 U.S. Jurisdictions, April 4–July 17, 2021"
> Age-standardized IRRs for cases in persons not fully vaccinated versus fully vaccinated decreased from 11.1 (95% CI = 7.8–15.8) during April 4–June 19 to 4.6 (95% CI = 2.5–8.5) during June 20–July 17, while IRRs decreased slightly from 13.3 (95% CI = 11.3–15.6) to 10.4 (95% CI = 8.1–13.3) for hospitalizations and from 16.6 (95% CI = 13.5–20.4) to 11.3 (95% CI = 9.1–13.9) for deaths during the same two periods.
Let that sink in for a moment...
The best way to boost overall vaccine effectiveness is to extend it lower risk groups - healthy children and young people - regardless of whether they really need it or not.
How does changing the average effectiveness on paper actually change how much it's helping an individual in one of the given groups?
I expect what could see is stubbornly elevated hospitalization and deaths in the high risk groups :( Bad for them but also bad because the way that politicians trying to drive health policy under mistaken assumptions will react.