COVID-19 infection outcome among vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals
during second and third wave of the pandemic in India - A
cross-sectional retrospective study
Abstract
Background- COVID-19 took a major toll on the healthcare system
in India. Multiple vaccines were developed to prevent infection with the
SARS-CoV-2 virus. Infection outcome was different among unvaccinated
patients and those vaccinated. Aims and Methodology- The
research aimed to find out various outcomes of COVID-19 disease and to
compare these outcomes in vaccinated and unvaccinated patients. Data was
collected from the records in a tertiary care hospital. The patients
were segregated into mild, moderate, and severe disease according to the
ICMR guidelines and the results were analysed using SPSS software.
Results- Data of 816 and 2010 individuals for second and third
wave respectively was collected and analysed. The results show that a
higher percentage of unvaccinated individuals were asymptomatic (54.7
and 59.3%) but within symptomatic individuals, mild forms of the
disease are much more common in vaccinated individuals (66.6% and
63.3%) while severe forms of the disease were more common in
unvaccinated individuals (5.7% and 3.1%). This suggests that while
vaccination may not have a significant effect on whether symptoms are
contracted, it plays a vital role in lowering the severity of the
disease form. Implications- This study proved that there exists
a strong correlation between vaccination and reduced severity of
disease, and further emphasized the importance of vaccines in protection
from grave outcomes. Calculation of risk estimate showed that the
unvaccinated individuals were more at risk for severe disease than those
vaccinated with one or two doses of vaccines.