Report by CDC points to vaccine efficacy

A day after President Joe Biden issued broad vaccine mandates aimed at propelling U.S. workers to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, federal health officials released a handful of studies highlighting how effective the shots are at preventing infections, hospitalizations and deaths — even while the highly contagious delta variant has been dominant.

Three studies that drew data from different U.S. regions evaluated the protective power of the vaccines. One looked at more than 600,000 virus cases in 13 states, representing about onequarter of the U.S. population, between April and July, and concluded that individuals who were not fully vaccinated were far more susceptible to infection and death from the virus.

They were 4.5 times more likely than vaccinated individuals to become infected, 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die from the coronavirus, the study found.

Vaccine protection against hospitalization and death remained strong even when the delta variant was the dominant form of infection. But the vaccines’ effectiveness in preventing infection dropped to 78 percent from 91 percent, the study found. The studies underscore a series of similar findings in recent weeks.

“As we have shown, study after study, vaccination works,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at a White House COVID briefing Friday. “… We still have more than 10 times the number of people in the hospital who are unvaccinated, compared to vaccinated.”