Fully vaccinated older adults 94% less likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19

In vaccine clinical trials, the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were shown to be about 95%  effective in preventing COVID-19. Now a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses real-world data to show that indeed, those who are 65 years and older who are fully vaccinated are 94% percent less likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 than those who have not been vaccinated. Researchers enrolled hospitalized patients from 20 hospitals across the nation—including UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital.

Adit Ginde, MD, MPH, professor of emergency medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine is the Colorado principal investigator of the study, which is the first large U.S. based multi-center study to evaluate how vaccines work in the real world.

“We focused on older adults because they are vulnerable to severe COVID-19 and because they were the first large group to receive the vaccine,” says Ginde, director of the Trial Innovation Network for the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and UCHealth emergency physician. “We compared hospitalized people with respiratory infections – some who had COVID and some who did not have COVID. Almost everyone hospitalized with COVID was not fully vaccinated.”