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. 2023 Apr 25;18(4):e0275699.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0275699. eCollection 2023.

The impact of COVID-19 vaccination in the US: Averted burden of SARS-COV-2-related cases, hospitalizations and deaths

Teresa K Yamana  1 , Marta Galanti  1 , Sen Pei  1 , Manuela Di Fusco  2 , Frederick J Angulo  3 , Mary M Moran  3 , Farid Khan  3 , David L Swerdlow  3 , Jeffrey Shaman  1   4
Affiliations

The impact of COVID-19 vaccination in the US: Averted burden of SARS-COV-2-related cases, hospitalizations and deaths

Teresa K Yamana et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

By August 1, 2022, the SARS-CoV-2 virus had caused over 90 million cases of COVID-19 and one million deaths in the United States. Since December 2020, SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have been a key component of US pandemic response; however, the impacts of vaccination are not easily quantified. Here, we use a dynamic county-scale metapopulation model to estimate the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths averted due to vaccination during the first six months of vaccine availability. We estimate that COVID-19 vaccination was associated with over 8 million fewer confirmed cases, over 120 thousand fewer deaths, and 700 thousand fewer hospitalizations during the first six months of the campaign.

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Conflict of interest statement

TKY, MG, SP and JS are employees of Columbia University, which received funding from Pfizer in connection with the development of this study and of this manuscript. JS and Columbia University disclose partial ownership of SK Analytics. JS discloses consulting for BNI. MDF, FJA, MMM, and FK are employees of Pfizer and may hold stock or stock options. DS was employed at Pfizer at the time this work was conducted and he may own stock or stock options. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Initial conditions, case hospitalization rates and case fatality rates.
Upper Left: Population susceptibility, S (proportion of the population not yet infected), at the start of vaccine administration; Upper Right: Time-varying reproductive number, Rt, at the start of vaccine administration; Lower Left: State-specific case hospitalization rate, CHR; Lower Right: State-specific case fatality rate, CFR. Color scales show the median values. Base maps show state boundaries from US Census Bureau [16].
Fig 2
Fig 2. Covid-19 cases and Rt from December 14th, 2020 through June 2nd, 2021.
Top: Covid-19 cases per 100,000 population per day (7-day moving average); Bottom: Median estimate of Rt in baseline scenario. Each blue line represents a single state. The black line is the overall national value. State and national estimates are derived by taking a population-weighted average of county-level estimates of Rt.
Fig 3
Fig 3
Modeled total COVID-19 Cases in Counterfactual Scenarios 1 (top panel), 2 (middle panel) and 3 (bottom panel) in the United States. The black line presents observed cases, the blue line indicates the median counterfactual projection, and the blue shaded area shows the 95% credible interval.
Fig 4
Fig 4
Total per capita averted cases (a), hospitalizations (b) and deaths (c) in each state between December 14, 2020 and June 2, 2021. The x-axis is the percent population vaccinated by June 2, 2021, and the y-axis is the averted cases/hospitalizations/deaths per 100,000 people. Each state is represented by a dot; the color scale of the dots indicate the estimated fraction of population susceptible at the beginning of vaccine rollout.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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