AUTHOR=Jain Vageesh , Serisier Aimee , Lorgelly Paula 

TITLE=The Real-World Impact of Vaccination on COVID-19 Cases During Europe’s Fourth Wave

JOURNAL=International Journal of Public Health

VOLUME=67

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.ssph-journal.org/journals/international-journal-of-public-health/articles/10.3389/ijph.2022.1604793

DOI=10.3389/ijph.2022.1604793

ISSN=1661-8564

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Objectives:</bold> Disease control is important to limit the social, economic and health effects of COVID-19 and reduce the risk of novel variants emerging. Evidence suggests vaccines are less effective against the Omicron variant, but their impact on disease control is unclear.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> We used a longitudinal fixed effects Poisson regression model to assess the impact of vaccination on COVID-19 case rates across 32 countries in Europe from 13th October to 01st January 2022. We controlled for country and time fixed effects and the severity of public health restrictions.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> Full vaccination coverage increased by 4.2%, leading to a 54% reduction in case rates across Europe (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001). This protection decreased over time but remained significant at 5 weeks after the detection of Omicron. Mean booster vaccination rates increased from 2.71% to 24.5% but provided no significant additional benefit. For every one-unit increase in the severity of public health restrictions, case rates fell by a further 2% (<italic>p</italic> = 0.019).</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> Full vaccination significantly limited the spread of COVID-19 and blunted the impact of the Omicron variant, despite becoming less useful over time.</p>