According to health experts, people who were not fully vaccinated this spring and summer were over 10 times more likely to be hospitalised, and 11 times more likely to die of the dreaded coronavirus (COVID-19) than those who were fully vaccinated.
This is according to one of three major studies published at the weekend by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that highlight the continued efficacy of all three vaccines amid the spread of the highly contagious delta variant. A second study showed the Moderna coronavirus vaccine was moderately more effective in preventing hospitalisations than its counterparts from Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson.
That assessment was based on the largest U.S. study to date of the real-world effectiveness of all three vaccines, involving about 32,000 patients seen in hospitals, emergency departments and urgent care clinics across nine states from June through early August.
While the three vaccines were collectively 86 percent effective in preventing hospitalisation, protection was significantly higher among Moderna vaccine recipients (95 percent) than among those who got Pfizer-BioNTech (80 percent) or Johnson & Johnson (60 percent).
That finding echoes a smaller study by the Mayo Clinic Health System in August, not yet peer-reviewed, which also showed the Moderna vaccine with higher effectiveness than Pfizer-BioNTech at preventing infections during the delta wave.
