Can vaccination escape testing positive with delta?

During the Delta wave in the United States, unvaccinated retail employees were almost 400% more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than those who had the Moderna vaccine, suggests a new study.

The Sterling institutional review board authorized this case-control study. This study adhered to the STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) reporting guidelines. The institutional review board waived informed consent due to the use of limited retrospective data that had already been gathered.

The researchers studied a group of over a million retail workers, 52.2 percent of whom were unvaccinated, 27.1 percent were vaccinated with Pfizer, 16.8 percent with Moderna, and 4 percent with Johnson & Johnson.

This study included 1,237,097 unique symptomatic people aged 18 and up who were assessed at 4094 different locations around the United States (732, 850 [59.2 percent] women, 503,303 [40.7 percent] males, and 944 [0.1 percent] unknown).

The median (IQR) age was 37 years (28-51).

The research included 88,178 (7.1 percent) Asian people, 168,639 (13.6 percent) Black or African American people, 221,521 (17.9 percent) Hispanic people, 661,459 (53.5 percent) White people, and 97,300 (7.9 percent) people who identified as Alaska Native, American Indian, Pacific Islander, unspecified, or unknown.

A total of 645,604 people (52.2 percent) were unvaccinated. Of the 591,493 vaccinated people (47.8 percent), 335,341 (27.1 percent) received BNT162b2, 207,250 (16.8 percent) received mRNA-1273, and 48,902 (4.0 percent) received JNJ-78436735.

It was found that vaccination reduced SARS-CoV-2 infection rates. Individuals who received mRNA vaccines (BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273) had the lowest incidence rate at all time points of observation, while unvaccinated people had the highest rate.

Unvaccinated participants experienced 412 percent, 287 percent, and 159 percent more illnesses, respectively, than patients who got mRNA1273, BNT162b2, or JNJ-78436735 vaccinations.

During the study period, the observed incidence rates were 24.8 percent (unvaccinated), 15.6 percent (JNJ-78436735), 8.6 percent (BNT162b2), and 6.0 percent (vaccinated) (mRNA-1273).

The size of the SARS-CoV-2 risk for unvaccinated people increased even more in July and August, coinciding with the increasing incidence of the Delta form in the United States. When only fully vaccinated people were considered, the pattern was essentially the same.

The study found that from May 2021 to August 2021, 24 percent of people who hadn’t been vaccinated were positive for the virus. 15.6 percent of people in the J&J group, 8.6 percent of people in the Pfizer group, and 6 percent of people in the Moderna group were positive.

Source: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.43346

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