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Countries with Higher Vaccination Coverage Experienced Reduced Fatality During the COVID-19 “Omicron” Fifth Wave – A Post Wave Analysis

Received: 2 April 2022    Accepted: 15 April 2022    Published: 22 April 2022
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Abstract

By the end of 2021, the outbreak of the COVID-19 caused approximately 265 million confirmed cases and 5.2 million deaths globally. On November 2021, the “Omicron” variant of the COVID-19 has emerged, and led to a massive outbreak in many countries worldwide. Despite the fact that the Omicron variant was considered less fatal compared to the previous variants, its prompt spread caused the biggest number of cases, and as a result the biggest number of deaths. At the beginning of the Omicron wave, some vaccines against COVID-19 existed. These vaccines were proved to be effective against the previous COVID-19 variants. However, their efficiency against the Omicron variant was questionable. This study examines whether, by the end of the Omicron wave, there is an association between the vaccination level of a country and the fatality of the Omicron variant in this country during the fifth wave. To evaluate the association, data on COVID-19 cases, COVID-19 deaths, and doses of vaccination per 100 people for 20 countries in which fifth COVID-19 wave (the “Omicron” wave) was observed were retrieved from a real-time available website. Based on the collected data, Case Fatality Rate (CFR) accumulated for the “Omicron” wave period was evaluated for each country. A linear regression model was conducted to predict the CFR of each country for the COVID-19 “Omicron” variant wave as a function of the vaccine administrated per 100 people. The results of this study suggest a strong statistically significant negative association between the vaccination level of a country and the fatality of the Omicron variant during the Omicron wave, i.e., countries which entered the “Omicron” wave with higher vaccination level had lower CFR. This post-wave analysis demonstrates that the vaccines developed so far have a protective effect against the fatality of the Omicron variant. Promoting the administration of the vaccine and by that increasing the vaccination level of a country may reduce fatality in the next coming COVID-19 waves.

Published in Biomedical Statistics and Informatics (Volume 7, Issue 2)
DOI 10.11648/j.bsi.20220702.11
Page(s) 18-22
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Pandemic, Linear Regression, Vaccine, Vaccination Level, Case Fatality Rate, COVID-19, Omicron Variant

References
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[2] Benisti G, Magid A. Predictors of COVID-19 Case Fatality Rate in Highly Populated Developed Countries During the Emergence of the Delta Variant.
[3] Al-Tawfiq JA, Hoang VT, Le Bui N, Chu DT, Memish ZA. The Emergence of the Omicron (B. 1.1. 529) SARS-CoV-2 Variant: What is the Impact on the Continued Pandemic?. Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health. 2022 Jan 28: 1-4.
[4] Mathieu E, Ritchie H, Ortiz-Ospina E, Roser M, Hasell J, Appel C, Giattino C, Rodés-Guirao L. A global database of COVID-19 vaccinations. Nature human behaviour. 2021 Jul; 5 (7): 947-53.
[5] Chhatwal J, Mueller PC, Ayer T, Adee MG, Dalgic O, Ladd MA, Linas B. Changing Dynamics of COVID-19 in the US with the Emergence of the Delta Variant: Projections of the COVID-19 Simulator. medRxiv. 2021 Jan 1.
[6] Diesel J, Sterrett N, Dasgupta S, Kriss JL, Barry V, Esschert KV, Whiteman A, Cadwell BL, Weller D, Qualters JR, Harris L. COVID-19 vaccination coverage among adults—United States, December 14, 2020–May 22, 2021. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 2021 Jun 25; 70 (25): 922.
[7] Barda N, Dagan N, Cohen C, Hernán MA, Lipsitch M, Kohane IS, Reis BY, Balicer RD. Effectiveness of a third dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine for preventing severe outcomes in Israel: an observational study. The Lancet. 2021 Dec 4; 398 (10316): 2093-100.
[8] Yamey G, Garcia P, Hassan F, Mao W, McDade KK, Pai M, Saha S, Schellekens P, Taylor A, Udayakumar K. It is not too late to achieve global COVID-19 vaccine equity. bmj. 2022 Mar 24; 376.
[9] Ritchie H, Mathieu E, Rodés-Guirao L, et al. Coronavirus vaccinations (COVID-19). Our World in Data 2020. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
[10] Abdelkader H, Siham J, Aimad D. Access to COVID-19 vaccines: inequality between developed and developing countries. Algerian Scientific Journal Platform. November 2021.
[11] Green MS, Abdullah R, Vered S, Nitzan D. A study of ethnic, gender and educational differences in attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines in Israel–implications for vaccination implementation policies. Israel Journal of Health Policy Research. 2021 Dec; 10 (1): 1-2.
[12] Willyard C. What the Omicron wave is revealing about human immunity. Nature. 2022 Feb 1; 602 (7895): 22-5.
[13] Nemet I, Kliker L, Lustig Y, Zuckerman N, Erster O, Cohen C, Kreiss Y, Alroy-Preis S, Regev-Yochay G, Mendelson E, Mandelboim M. Third BNT162b2 vaccination neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection. New England Journal of Medicine. 2022 Feb 3; 386 (5): 492-4.
[14] Regev-Yochay G, Gonen T, Gilboa M, Mandelboim M, Indenbaum V, Amit S, Meltzer L, Asraf K, Cohen C, Fluss R, Biber A. Efficacy of a fourth dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine against omicron. New England Journal of Medicine. 2022 Mar 16.
[15] Arbel R, Sergienko R, Friger M, Peretz A, Beckenstein T, Yaron S, Netzer D, Hammerman A. Second Booster Vaccine and COVID-19 Mortality in Adults 60 to 100 Years Old.
[16] Böttcher, Lucas, Mingtao Xia, and Tom Chou. "Why case fatality ratios can be misleading: individual-and population-based mortality estimates and factors influencing them." Physical biology 17, no. 6 (2020): 065003.
[17] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Authorizes Second Booster Dose of Two COVID-19 Vaccines for Older and Immunocompromised Individuals. March 2022. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-COVID-19-update-fda-authorizes-second-booster-dose-two-COVID-19-vaccines-older-and
[18] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC Recommends Additional Boosters for Certain Individuals. March 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/s0328-COVID-19-boosters.html
[19] Sadarangani M, Raya BA, Conway JM, Iyaniwura SA, Falcao RC, Colijn C, Coombs D, Gantt S. Importance of COVID-19 vaccine efficacy in older age groups. Vaccine. 2021 Apr 8; 39 (15): 2020-3.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Golan Benisti, Avi Magid. (2022). Countries with Higher Vaccination Coverage Experienced Reduced Fatality During the COVID-19 “Omicron” Fifth Wave – A Post Wave Analysis. Biomedical Statistics and Informatics, 7(2), 18-22. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.bsi.20220702.11

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    ACS Style

    Golan Benisti; Avi Magid. Countries with Higher Vaccination Coverage Experienced Reduced Fatality During the COVID-19 “Omicron” Fifth Wave – A Post Wave Analysis. Biomed. Stat. Inform. 2022, 7(2), 18-22. doi: 10.11648/j.bsi.20220702.11

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    AMA Style

    Golan Benisti, Avi Magid. Countries with Higher Vaccination Coverage Experienced Reduced Fatality During the COVID-19 “Omicron” Fifth Wave – A Post Wave Analysis. Biomed Stat Inform. 2022;7(2):18-22. doi: 10.11648/j.bsi.20220702.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.bsi.20220702.11,
      author = {Golan Benisti and Avi Magid},
      title = {Countries with Higher Vaccination Coverage Experienced Reduced Fatality During the COVID-19 “Omicron” Fifth Wave – A Post Wave Analysis},
      journal = {Biomedical Statistics and Informatics},
      volume = {7},
      number = {2},
      pages = {18-22},
      doi = {10.11648/j.bsi.20220702.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.bsi.20220702.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.bsi.20220702.11},
      abstract = {By the end of 2021, the outbreak of the COVID-19 caused approximately 265 million confirmed cases and 5.2 million deaths globally. On November 2021, the “Omicron” variant of the COVID-19 has emerged, and led to a massive outbreak in many countries worldwide. Despite the fact that the Omicron variant was considered less fatal compared to the previous variants, its prompt spread caused the biggest number of cases, and as a result the biggest number of deaths. At the beginning of the Omicron wave, some vaccines against COVID-19 existed. These vaccines were proved to be effective against the previous COVID-19 variants. However, their efficiency against the Omicron variant was questionable. This study examines whether, by the end of the Omicron wave, there is an association between the vaccination level of a country and the fatality of the Omicron variant in this country during the fifth wave. To evaluate the association, data on COVID-19 cases, COVID-19 deaths, and doses of vaccination per 100 people for 20 countries in which fifth COVID-19 wave (the “Omicron” wave) was observed were retrieved from a real-time available website. Based on the collected data, Case Fatality Rate (CFR) accumulated for the “Omicron” wave period was evaluated for each country. A linear regression model was conducted to predict the CFR of each country for the COVID-19 “Omicron” variant wave as a function of the vaccine administrated per 100 people. The results of this study suggest a strong statistically significant negative association between the vaccination level of a country and the fatality of the Omicron variant during the Omicron wave, i.e., countries which entered the “Omicron” wave with higher vaccination level had lower CFR. This post-wave analysis demonstrates that the vaccines developed so far have a protective effect against the fatality of the Omicron variant. Promoting the administration of the vaccine and by that increasing the vaccination level of a country may reduce fatality in the next coming COVID-19 waves.},
     year = {2022}
    }
    

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Author Information
  • Department of Health System Management, Peres Academic Center, Rehovot, Israel

  • Department of Information Systems, and Department of Health System Management, Emek Yezreel Valley College, Jezreel Valley, Israel

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