ABSTRACT
Study question Does recent mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccination effect IVF pregnancy rate? Summary answer We observed no influence of mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccine on patients’ IVF cycle outcomes;vaccination did not change pregnancy rates. What is known already Two recent studies showed that the BNT162b2 mRNA SARS-COV-2 vaccine does not appear to have negative effects on oocytes during controlled ovarian stimulation. Assessment of follicular fluid after vaccination (1) concluded that there was no affect on the follicle quality or function. An additional study of 36 patients that underwent IVF both immediately before and immediately after vaccination found no change in ovarian yield or embryo quality (2). Study design, size, duration A retrospective case control study including 385 women from January 1, 2021 to May 31st of the same year. Participants/materials, setting, methods The study group included patients that received 2 doses of the Pfizer SARS-COV-2 vaccine between 7-180 days prior to starting IVF and without a history of COVID infection. Controls included unvaccinated patients from the same time period and historical age matched patients from our hospital from the same months in prior years. 385 patients under the age of 40 years met the inclusion criteria, 349 in the control and 36 in the vaccinated group. Main results and the role of chance Demographic and clinical characteristics were comparable between groups. The pregnancy rate was 33.3% (n = 12) in the vaccinated group vs 31.8% (n = 111) in the control group (p > 0.1). There were no statistically significant differences between the control and vaccine groups with a small non-significant trend to higher pregnancy rates in vaccinated patients: pregnancy rate OR for vaccination group was 1.17 (95% CI 0.56-2.44). Limitations, reasons for caution Our study size was small and was observational leaving it open to confounding and selection bias regarding who chose to receive the vaccine and those in high risk groups for COVID infection. Additionally, longterm effect of the vaccine and booster were not assessed. Wider implications of the findings We did not observe any effect of this vaccine regimen on IVF outcomes or pregnancy rates. This underscores worldwide data and physiologic reasoning that there should not be significant effects of this COVID vaccine on developing gametes quality and function and is a good option for those trying to conceive. Trial registration number LND 0031-21
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused great disruption to the service sector, and it has, in turn, adapted by implementing measures that reduce physical contact among employees and users;examples include home-office work and the setting of occupancy restrictions at indoor locations. The design of services in the context of a pandemic requires balancing between two objectives: (i) special measures must be implemented to maintain physical separation among people to reduce the risk of infection, and (u) these sanitary measures also reduce process capacity, thereby increasing the waiting times of users. We study this problem in the context of election processes, in which balancing waiting time with public safety is of first order relevance to ensuring voter turnout, using as a real-world application the Chilean 2020 national referendum. Analyzing this problem requires a multidisciplinary approach that consists of integrating randomized experiments to measure how voters weigh infection risk relative to waiting time and stochastic modeling/discrete event simulation to prescribe recommendations for the service design-specifically setting capacity limits to trade off between overcrowding and process efficiency. Overall, our results shows that infection risk is an important factor affecting voter turnout during a pandemic and that capacity limits can be a useful design tool to balance these risks with other service quality measures. Some of these findings were considered in the guidelines that Servel provided to manage capacity and voter arrival patterns at voting centers.