{"id":91730,"date":"2026-07-06T10:16:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=91730"},"modified":"2026-07-06T10:16:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:16:05","slug":"new-study-covid-19-vaccine-effectiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/new-study-covid-19-vaccine-effectiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"New study: COVID-19 vaccines cut hospitalizations by more than 50%"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"COVID-19
COVID-19 continues to mutate and spread, and a recent study of the 2025\u201326 COVID vaccine showed that the vaccine reduced illnesses that required medical care and hospitalization. Photo: Getty Images.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 2025-2026 COVID-19 vaccine reduced emergency department and urgent care visits by 50% and hospitalizations by 55%, according to a new peer-reviewed study<\/a> published in JAMA Network Open.<\/p>\n

The study reviewed 85,725 emergency department and urgent care encounters and 26,073 hospitalizations among adults aged 18 and older with COVID-19-like symptoms. The patients weren\u2019t immunocompromised. Researchers compiled the cases using a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) network of 253 emergency departments and urgent care centers and 179 hospitals in seven states, including UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe study tells us that COVID-19 vaccines are quite effective, and that they\u2019re still an important tool in terms of keeping people from being hospitalized or becoming severely ill,\u201d said Dr. Michelle Barron, UCHealth\u2019s\u00a0senior medical director of infection prevention and control<\/a> and a coauthor of the study. \u201cIt\u2019s in line with what we\u2019ve seen in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

No 2026 summer spike yet, but COVID still causing serious illness<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic may be something we all would like to forget, but the virus continues to mutate<\/a> and spread<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Recent data show good news: there hasn\u2019t yet been a summer COVID-19 infection spike related to people spending time indoors in air conditioning. In recent years, a summer spike in COVID-19 cases occurred in July and August. Still, the JAMA Open Network study estimated that there were 390,000 to 550,000 U.S. hospitalizations due to the virus between Oct. 1, 2024, and Sept. 27, 2025, with about 40% of hospitalizations among patients aged 65 and older.<\/p>\n

When is the best time to get a COVID-19 vaccine for maximum protection?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As for when to get vaccinated, Barron suggests doing so this fall, when the updated versions of COVID-19 vaccines roll out \u2014 ideally as a single-injection combination with a flu shot. COVID-19 infections, like the flu, have historically climbed during the winter months.<\/p>\n

Medical experts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May advised<\/a> vaccine makers to produce vaccines tailored to the dominant XFG variant of the virus\u2019s JN.1 lineage, itself a distant progeny of the omicron strain that brought a global SARS-CoV-2 infection wave starting in late 2021.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 vaccines are safe and protect against severe illness<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Barron said people should consider COVID-19 vaccines \u201cvery safe, and highly effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are always going to be side effects associated with a vaccine. Some people have mild soreness in the arm. Some people feel like they need to lie down because they feel so terrible afterwards,\u201d said Barron, who is also a professor of medicine and infectious diseases<\/a> at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut again, side effects are not the same as having an adverse event, and the notion that COVID vaccines put you at a higher risk of developing a stroke, or memory issues, or all sorts of craziness that gets reported, none of that has been substantiated.\u201d<\/p>\n

COVID-19 infections increase the risk of several serious health problems, including:<\/strong><\/h3>\n