Monitoring the COVID-19 immune landscape in Japan

COVID-19 vaccination in Japan started on February 17, 2021. Because the timing of vaccination and the risk of severe COVID-19 greatly varied with age, the present study aimed to monitor the age-specific fractions of the population who were immune to SARS-CoV-2 infection after vaccination.

Natural infection remained extremely rare, accounting for less than 5% of the population by the end of 2021; thus, we ignored natural infection-induced immunity and focused on vaccine-induced immunity. We estimated the fraction of the population immune to infection by age group using vaccination registry data from February 17, 2021, to October 17, 2021. We accounted for two important sources of delay: (i) reporting delay and (ii) time from vaccination until immune protection develops.

At the end of the observation period, the proportion of individuals still susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection substantially varied by age and was estimated to be ≥90% among people aged 0-14 years, in contrast to approximately 20% among the population aged ≥65 years. We also estimated the effective reproduction number over time using a next-generation matrix while accounting for differences in the proportion immune to infection by age.

The COVID-19 immune landscape greatly varied by age, and a substantial proportion of young adults remained susceptible. Vaccination contributed to a marked decrease in the reproduction number.