A recent study led by a KPSOM faculty member found that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective against hospitalization for 6 months after full vaccination, though protection against the delta variant tended to decline at 4 to 5 months. The study was published in the peer-reviewed research journal The Lancet.
“When we looked at vaccine effectiveness against delta, we saw that protection against infection starts very high but declines over time,” said the study’s lead author, Sara Y. Tartof, PhD, MPH, a KPSOM Assistant Professor of Health Systems Science and an infectious disease epidemiologist with the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation.