The VA Study
A study was done using data from the Veteran Health Administration (VHA) system collected from October 2023 through May 2024, and published in March 2025. The title of the study was Effectiveness of the 2023-2024 XBB.1.5 COVID-19 Vaccines Over Long-Term Follow-up. Approximately 587,000 vaccinated veterans were compared to 587,000 unvaccinated veterans.
In the first paragraph of the Discussion section, the authors wrote, “the COVID-19 vaccine targeting the XBB.1.5 variant of Omicron was not protective against documented SARS-CoV-2 infection and had a relatively low estimated effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2-associated hospitalization (VE, 16.64%) and death (VE 26.61%).”
Indeed, the VE was -3.26% (95% CI, -6.78% to -0.22%) against documented SARS-CoV-2 infection. So, again – as demonstrated in the studies from the previous posts, the vaccinated group had a statistically significant higher infection rate than the unvaccinated control group.