Top 5 Takeaways High Vaccine Effectiveness: COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were 86.8% effective in preventing COVID-19–associated hospitalization among U.S. veterans. Effectiveness Across Variants: The effectiveness remained high during both pre-Delta (84.1%)

Top 5 Takeaways High Overall Vaccine Effectiveness: COVID-19 vaccines showed high effectiveness against hospitalization (86%) and emergency department/urgent care (ED/UC) encounters (82%) during the Delta variant predominance. Age-Related Differences: Vaccine

Top 5 Takeaways Increased Hospitalization Rates: During the Omicron variant predominance, infants and children aged 0–4 years were hospitalized at approximately five times the rate compared to the Delta variant

Top 5 Takeaways Vaccine Effectiveness: The study found a potential decline in vaccine protection against confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection but continued strong protection against COVID-19–associated hospitalization and death. Impact of Delta

Top 5 Takeaways Vaccine Effectiveness: Two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine reduced the risk of Omicron infection by 31% among children aged 5–11 years and by 59% among adolescents

Top 5 Takeaways Increased BMI Rates: The rate of BMI increase nearly doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the prepandemic period. Higher Impact on Overweight and Obese: Persons aged

Top 5 Takeaways Overall Difficulty: In 2020, 12.3% of adults aged ≥18 years reported some difficulty hearing even when using a hearing aid, and 1.5% had a lot of difficulty