The effectiveness of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines plunged to near zero within months, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data presented on June 5.
Estimated shielding among adults aged 18 to 64 against visits to emergency departments and urgent care facilities turned negative beyond 120 days after peaking at 52 percent, an analysis of data from the CDC’s VISION network found. Protection for those 65 and older was pegged at 9 percent 120 days and later following receipt of one of the vaccines, after peaking at 47 percent. Shielding against hospitalization was estimated to peak at 31 percent and drop to 4 percent beyond 120 days among adults aged 18 to 64 and peak at 53 percent before plunging to 16 percent among adults aged 65 and up, according to data from the network.
The protection against admission to an intensive care unit or death was slightly higher, grouped together under the critical illness designation by CDC officials, coming in at 32 percent beyond four months. Data from another CDC network, IVY, showed that effectiveness against hospitalization declined to 27 percent among adults beyond 90 days, and even lower—to 23 percent—during the period of time after JN.1 and its lineages became the dominant strains in the United States in late 2023.
Protection against symptomatic infection was just 37 percent after 60 days during the time of JN.1 dominance, according to data from a third CDC network. The only estimates for c.
