Breakthrough Infection Study Compares Decline in COVID Vaccine Effectiveness: Pfizer vs Moderna vs J&J

Study in Science of more than 780,000 Veterans is the first to compare waning protection rates across all three vaccine types available to most Americans and to directly report death rates after breakthrough infection.

Breakthrough infections among 780,225 Veterans, finding that vaccine protection declined from 87.9% to 48.1% during the 2021 Delta surge in the U.S. The researchers from PHI, the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Texas Health Science Center found a dramatic decline in effectiveness for the Janssen vaccine, from 86.4% in March to 13%.1 in September.

As COVID-19 breakthrough infections continue to emerge in some vaccine recipients and health authorities are developing policies around booster vaccinations, national data on COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections is inadequate but urgently needed.

Declines for PfizerBioNTech were from 86.9% to 43.3%. Declines for Moderna were 89.2% to 58%. While most previous studies have focused on the PfizerBioNTech or Moderna vaccines, the Science study is the first to compare protection declines across the three main vaccine types, and the first to show the comparably dramatic decline in effectiveness for the Janssen vaccine.

Declines were assessed over the period February 1, 2021 to October 1, 2021, reflecting the emergence and dominance of the Delta variant in the U.S. Patterns of breakthrough infection over time were consistent by age, despite rolling vaccine eligibility, implicating the Delta variant as the primary determinant of infection.

"Our study gives researchers, policymakers, and others a strong basis for comparing the long-term effectiveness of COVID vaccines, and a lens for making informed decisions around primary vaccination, booster shots, and other multiple layers of protection, including masking mandates, social distancing, testing and other public health interventions to reduce chance of spread," said Dr. Barbara Cohn of PHI, the lead author of the study.

The FDA authorized Pfizer boosters for some groups in September and Moderna and Janssen boosters in October, and the CDC has made similar recommendations, including supporting a "Mix and match" approach that allows people to choose any of the three vaccine boosters regardless of which they were given initially.

https://scitechdaily.com/breakthrough-infection-study-compares-decline-in-covid-vaccine-effectiveness-pfizer-vs-moderna-vs-jj/