The Delta Variant Had Negligible Impact on COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness in the USA

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) was initially identified in India in December 2020. Due to its high transmissibility, its prevalence in the U.S.A. grew from a near-zero baseline in early May 2021 to nearly 100% by late August 2021, according to CDC tracking. We accessed openly available data sources from the public health authorities of seven U.S. states, five U.S. counties, and the District of Columbia on RT-PCR COVID-19 tests split by the COVID-19 vaccination status of individuals tested during this period. Together, these time series enable estimation and tracking of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness (VE∗) (against RT-PCR diagnosed infection) concurrently with the growth of Delta variant prevalence in those locations. Our analyses reveal that in each locality the VE∗ for the combined set of all three US vaccines remained relatively stable and quite well-performing, despite the dramatic concurrent rise of Delta variant prevalence. We conclude that the Delta variant does not significantly evade vaccine-induced immunity. The variations in our measured VE∗ appear to be driven by demographic factors affecting the composition of the vaccinated cohorts, particularly as pertains to age distribution. We report that the measured VE∗, aggregated across the collected sites, began at a value of about 0.9 in mid-May, declined to about 0.76 by mid-July, and recovered to about 0.9 by mid-September.SummaryWe estimated local COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness using RT-PCR COVID-19 test data broken out by vaccination status from select localities in the U.S.A. between 15 May and 15 September 2021 while the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) was ascending from essentially zero prevalence to total dominance of the genome, and showed that the rise of the Delta variant had negligible effect on vaccine effectiveness.