Impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Vaccine on Asymptomatic Infection Among Patients Undergoing Preprocedural COVID-19 Molecular Screening

Background Several vaccines are now available under emergency use authorization in the United States and have demonstrated efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19. Vaccine impact on asymptomatic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is largely unknown. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of consecutive, asymptomatic adult patients (n=39 156) within a large US healthcare system who underwent 48 333 preprocedural SARS-CoV-2 molecular screening tests between 17 December 2020 and 8 February 2021. The primary exposure of interest was vaccination with >= 1 dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. The primary outcome was relative risk (RR) of a positive SARS-CoV-2 molecular test among those asymptomatic persons who had received >= 1 dose of vaccine compared with persons who had not received vaccine during the same time period. RR was adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, patient residence relative to the hospital (local vs nonlocal), healthcare system regions, and repeated screenings among patients using mixed-effects log-binomial regression. Results Positive molecular tests in asymptomatic individuals were reported in 42 (1.4%) of 3006 tests and 1436 (3.2%) of 45 327 tests performed on vaccinated and unvaccinated patients, respectively (RR, .44; 95% CI, .33-.60; P<.0001). Compared with unvaccinated patients, risk of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection was lower among those >10 days after the first dose (RR, .21; 95% CI, .12-.37; P<.0001) and >0 days after the second dose (RR, .20; 95% CI, .09-.44; P<.0001) in the adjusted analysis. Conclusions COVID-19 vaccination with an mRNA-based vaccine showed a significant association with reduced risk of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection as measured during preprocedural molecular screening. Results of this study demonstrate the impact of the vaccines on reduction in asymptomatic infections supplementing the randomized trial results on symptomatic patients. Among asymptomatic adults undergoing preprocedural SARS-CoV-2 molecular screening, risk of a positive test was lower among those >10 days after the first dose and >0 days after the second dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, compared with those who were unvaccinated.

Automated summary

This study found a significant association between vaccination with mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines and reduced risk of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection.