Waning Immunity after the BNT162b2 Vaccine in Israel
New England Journal of Medicine·
- DOI
- 10.1056/nejmoa2114228
- PMID
- 34706170
- PMCID
- PMC8609604
- OpenAlex
- W3208466650
- Study type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- Massachusetts Medical Society
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Publication version
This article has a linked preprint
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Open linked preprint →Why this research matters now
The findings suggest that vaccine-induced protection against delta variant infection and severe disease diminished within months of the second dose, which has implications for booster dose timing and outbreak control strategies.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
The study examined whether immunity from the BNT162b2 vaccine waned over time against the delta variant during Israel's resurgent outbreak in mid-2021.
Study design
This observational study used national registry data from July 11-31, 2021, applying Poisson regression models to compare infection and severe disease rates among Israeli residents fully vaccinated at different time points before June 2021, with age stratification and adjustment for confounders.
Population and setting
The analysis included all Israeli residents fully vaccinated with BNT162b2 before June 2021, stratified into three age groups: 16-39 years, 40-59 years, and 60 years or older.
Main findings
Across all age groups, individuals vaccinated earlier showed higher infection rates than those vaccinated two months later, with rate ratios ranging from 1.6 to 1.7. For severe disease, the rate ratio was 1.8 among those 60+ years and 2.2 among those 40-59 years when comparing earliest-eligible vaccinees to March vaccinees, though the latter had wide confidence intervals.
Public-health relevance
The findings suggest that vaccine-induced protection against delta variant infection and severe disease diminished within months of the second dose, which has implications for booster dose timing and outbreak control strategies.
Important limitations
Small case numbers prevented calculation of severe disease rate ratios for the youngest age group. This summary relies on the supplied abstract and metadata; the original paper is needed for decision-grade interpretation including detailed methods, potential biases, and unmeasured confounding.
GIDS interpretation
The classifier links indicate this article was discoverable through GIDS queries for COVID-19, SARS, Israel, outbreak investigation, vaccination, and vaccine effectiveness. These links reflect the article's subject matter and do not indicate that surveillance data confirmed the findings.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 12 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.