COVID-19 Vaccination Is Not Enough to Stop Transmission and Reduce Mortality : Additional Factors Drive Pandemic Diffusion and Negative Impact in Society

Since 2021, vaccinations for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) are more and more a health policy to cope with on-going pandemic crisis. Is this policy response enough to stop the diffusion of novel coronavirus and reduce the negative impact in society? The goal of this study here is to confront this question with a statistical analysis of the relation between share of people fully vaccinated and COVID-19 mortality between countries. Results based on global data of 151 countries reveal a positive coefficient of correlation r= .65 (p-value <.01) between share of people fully vaccinated in January 2022 and COVID-19 related total deaths per 100 000 people at the same period, whereas controlling Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita (a proxy of wellbeing of nations) r= .443 (p-value <.001). In addition, the partial coefficient of regression (controlling GDP per capita) indicates that a 1% higher share of people fully vaccinated, increases the expected deaths per 100 000 people by .713% (p-value < 0.001) between countries. This study suggests that COVID-19 vaccinations can be a necessary but not sufficient strategy to reduce the negative impact of the novel coronavirus in society, because there are manifold factors that support the diffusion and mortality of this pandemic, such as new variants, high air pollution and mobility of people, high density of cities and intensive commercial activities, low investments in healthcare sector and in new technology (such as the adoption of non-invasive medical ventilation), etc. These findings here can support comprehensive health policy responses of crisis management to face this pandemic, not only based on vaccinations, considering that complex environmental and socioeconomic factors guide transmission dynamics of COVID-19 and negative effects in society