Association Between mRNA Vaccination and COVID-19 Hospitalization and Disease Severity

AUTHORS

Tenforde MW , Self WH , Adams K , Gaglani M , Ginde AA , McNeal T , Ghamande S , Douin DJ , Talbot HK , Casey JD , Mohr NM , Zepeski A , Shapiro NI , Gibbs KW , Files DC , Hager DN , Shehu A , Prekker ME , Erickson HL , Exline MC , Gong MN , Mohamed A , Henning DJ , Steingrub JS , Peltan ID , Brown SM , Martin ET , Monto AS , Khan A , Hough CL , Busse LW , Ten Lohuis CC , Duggal A , Wilson JG , Gordon AJ , Qadir N , Chang SY , Mallow C , Rivas C , Babcock HM , Kwon JH , Halasa N , Chappell JD , Lauring AS , Grijalva CG , Rice TW , Jones ID , Stubblefield WB , Baughman A , Womack KN , Rhoads JP , Lindsell CJ , Hart KW , Zhu Y , Olson SM , Kobayashi M , Verani JR , Patel MM , , . JAMA. 2021 11 4; ().

PMID: 34734975 [PubMed].

ABSTRACT

Importance: A comprehensive understanding of the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination requires consideration of disease attenuation, determined as whether people who develop COVID-19 despite vaccination have lower disease severity than unvaccinated people.

Objective: To evaluate the association between vaccination with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines-mRNA-1273 (Moderna) and BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech)-and COVID-19 hospitalization, and, among patients hospitalized with COVID-19, the association with progression to critical disease.

Design, Setting, and Participants: A US 21-site case-control analysis of 4513 adults hospitalized between March 11 and August 15, 2021, with 28-day outcome data on death and mechanical ventilation available for patients enrolled through July 14, 2021. Date of final follow-up was August 8, 2021.

Exposures: COVID-19 vaccination.

Main Outcomes and Measures: Associations were evaluated between prior vaccination and (1) hospitalization for COVID-19, in which case patients were those hospitalized for COVID-19 and control patients were those hospitalized for an alternative diagnosis; and (2) disease progression among patients hospitalized for COVID-19, in which cases and controls were COVID-19 patients with and without progression to death or mechanical ventilation, respectively. Associations were measured with multivariable logistic regression.

Results: Among 4513 patients (median age, 59 years [IQR, 45-69]; 2202 [48.8%] women; 23.0% non-Hispanic Black individuals, 15.9% Hispanic individuals, and 20.1% with an immunocompromising condition), 1983 were case patients with COVID-19 and 2530 were controls without COVID-19. Unvaccinated patients accounted for 84.2% (1669/1983) of COVID-19 hospitalizations. Hospitalization for COVID-19 was significantly associated with decreased likelihood of vaccination (cases, 15.8%; controls, 54.8%; adjusted OR, 0.15; 95% CI, 0.13-0.18), including for sequenced SARS-CoV-2 Alpha (8.7% vs 51.7%; aOR, 0.10; 95% CI, 0.06-0.16) and Delta variants (21.9% vs 61.8%; aOR, 0.14; 95% CI, 0.10-0.21). This association was stronger for immunocompetent patients (11.2% vs 53.5%; aOR, 0.10; 95% CI, 0.09-0.13) than immunocompromised patients (40.1% vs 58.8%; aOR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.35-0.69) (P < .001) and weaker at more than 120 days since vaccination with BNT162b2 (5.8% vs 11.5%; aOR, 0.36; 95% CI, 0.27-0.49) than with mRNA-1273 (1.9% vs 8.3%; aOR, 0.15; 95% CI, 0.09-0.23) (P < .001). Among 1197 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, death or invasive mechanical ventilation by day 28 was associated with decreased likelihood of vaccination (12.0% vs 24.7%; aOR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.19-0.58).

Conclusions and Relevance: Vaccination with an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine was significantly less likely among patients with COVID-19 hospitalization and disease progression to death or mechanical ventilation. These findings are consistent with risk reduction among vaccine breakthrough infections compared with absence of vaccination.

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