Clinical Infection in Practice · Published 2026-07-15 · DOI 10.1016/j.clinpr.2026.100715
Dagan Coppock, Joseph Glowacki, Nikita Jaggernauth, John Zurlo, Constantine Daskalakis, Daniel Taupin
In this retrospective study, we compared the cause of death among hospitalized patients who died with a diagnosis of COVID-19 across two periods of the pandemic two years apart: an early period (admissions June to October 2020), when the population was immunologically naïve, and a later period (admissions April to October 2022), when an estimated 96% of the population had immunity from prior infection, vaccination, or both. Two investigators independently reviewed the medical records of 100 in-hospital deaths (50 per period) and classified each death as COVID-19 related, uncertain, or not COVID-19 related, using logistic regression to compare the two periods. Deaths during the early period were more likely to reflect a direct consequence of COVID-19 infection than deaths in the later period (adjusted odds ratio 0.25 for the later vs. early period; 95% CI 0.10 to 0.64; p = 0.004). This difference was largely attenuated when vaccination status was added to the model, suggesting a protective effect of vaccination against COVID-19 related mortality.
Abstract from DOAJ. Public domain (CC0 1.0).
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Coppock, D., Glowacki, J., Jaggernauth, N., et al. (2026). Mortality from or with COVID-19 infection. Clinical Infection in Practice. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinpr.2026.100715