Studies of hospital workers suggest COVID-19 vaccines really do prevent coronavirus infections
LA TimesMedical student Liesl Eibschutz loads a syringe with a dose of COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech. Both studies compare coronavirus infection rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated people who work at a single medical center. Over the three months, 51 people tested positive for a coronavirus infection after receiving their first dose of vaccine, and 29 of them never developed any COVID-19 symptoms. After crunching all the numbers, biostatistician Li Tang and her St. Jude colleagues determined that people who’d had at least one dose of vaccine were 79% less likely than their unvaccinated coworkers to become infected with the coronavirus. Sixty-three people who’d had at least one dose of vaccine were found to have asymptomatic coronavirus infections, as were 31 workers who skipped the vaccine.