Describing the population experiencing COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough following second vaccination in England: a cohort study from OpenSAFELY

Journal article

While the majority of COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough cases in England were mild, some differences in rates of breakthrough cases have been identified in several clinical groups. While it is important to note that these findings are simply descriptive and cannot be used to answer why certain groups have higher rates of COVID-19 breakthrough than others, the emergence of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 coupled with the number of positive SARS-CoV-2 tests still occurring is concerning and as numbers of fully vaccinated (and boosted) individuals increases and as follow-up time lengthens, so too will the number of COVID-19 breakthrough cases. Additional analyses, to assess vaccine waning and rates of breakthrough COVID-19 between different variants, aimed at identifying individuals at higher risk, are needed.

Authors: Green, A; Curtis, H; Hulme, W; Williamson, E; McDonald, H

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: BioMed Central
• Journal: BMC Medicine
• Volume: 20
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 243-243
• Article number: 243
• Publication date: 2022-07-05
• DOI: 10.1186/s12916-022-02422-0
• EISSN: 1741-7015
• ISSN: 1741-7015
• Language: English
• Keywords: Infectious disease (medical specialty); Disease; Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); Medicine; Pediatrics; Cohort study; Internal medicine; Incidence (geometry); Emergency medicine; Environmental health; Retrospective cohort study; Vaccination; Immunology; Population; Cohort