In the United States mask wearing is positively correlated with vaccine acceptance. This correlation introduces an important bias into real-world estimates of vaccine efficacy. I derive the formulae for vaccine efficacy that correct for this phenomenon and show that such biases explain some of the differences between higher estimates of vaccine efficacy observed in the US studies, on one hand, and lower estimates from Israel and Pfizer trials, on the other hand. Control for such biases is important for currently-debated public health decisions regarding COVID19 vaccine booster doses.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.