SARS-CoV-2 causes the highly contagious coronavirus disease (COVID-19), first discovered in Wuhan, China, in December of 2019. As of August 21, 2021, over 211 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and 4.42 million people have died from the disease worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected world economies, global public health infrastructure, and social behaviors. Despite physical distancing and the advent of symptomatic and monoclonal antibody therapies, perhaps the most effective method to combat COVID-19 remains the creation of immunity through vaccines. Scientific communities globally have been diligently working to develop vaccines since the start of the pandemic. Though a few have been authorized for use, the Pfizer vaccine was the first to be given full approval in the United States in August 2021 – being the quickest vaccine to ever be developed. Although several vaccines produced via different approaches are in use, no mortality has been reported thus far from vaccine use. Here, we highlight the latest advances in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines, specifically the lead candidates that are in late-stage clinical trials or authorized for emergency use. As SARS-CoV-2 uses its spike protein to enter a host cell and cause infection, most vaccine candidates target this protein. This review describes the various COVID-19 vaccines - authorized and/or under development - and their composition, advantages, and potential limitations as the world continues to fight this devastating pandemic.

Many community members believe the vaccine is not effective against COVID-19 and that local hospitals are full of vaccinated patients with severe COVID-19. Furthermore, they feel national figures do not reflect local numbers. We aimed to analyze the profile of COVID-19 patients in our local community hospital in Sacramento, California to see if indeed most COVID-19 hospitalized patients are vaccinated. This is a retrospective cross-sectional study of COVID-19 patients that were admitted to a community hospital on August 26, 2021, during the delta variant surge. We analyzed the profile of patients in the hospital who had a positive COVID-19 test by PCR. A total of 96 COVID-19 patients were studied of which 20 are vaccinated and 76 are unvaccinated. The average age of hospitalized vaccinated patients with COVID-19 is 69 while unvaccinated patients is 52.6. Additionally, 24 patients were on high flow oxygen with only 3 of them being fully vaccinated. There are 26 patients in the ICU with COVID-19 of which only 3 are fully vaccinated. 21 of these ICU patients are on mechanical ventilation with only 2 being fully vaccinated. Our data is consistent with national trends. While breakthrough infections are inevitable, analysis shows that the elderly population is most significantly impacted. However, breakthrough infections tend to also be less severe. Importantly, the unvaccinated population with COVID-19 disease and hospitalization tend to be of younger age. Altogether, this data from our local hospital highlights and emphasizes the need for our community to be fully vaccinated to prevent COVID-19 disease and hospitalizations.

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