The State of Israel is ahead of other nations in its COVID-19 vaccination program. This is due to it negotiating priority Pfizer deliveries, in exchange for agreeing to send the manufacturer medical updates. They airbrushed individual identities out to protect privacy, but for the rest, the first results from the Pfizer vaccine in Israel are largely in the public domain.
Medical Brief Publishes a Statistical Overview
Medical Brief revealed Pfizer vaccine is already 50% effective after 13 to 24 days, and the infection rate is down. Moreover, the Israeli Ministry of Health says a mere .07% of vaccinated over-60-year-olds tested positive for COVID-19. And just 38 of those 531 elders were hospitalized with moderate, severe, or critical disease.
This information is from the records of nearly one million people. And it spans the period from their first vaccine dose, to seven days after their second one. The only downside appears to be three COVID-19 deaths. Although the Ministry believes those older individuals may have contracted the disease before their immunity developed.
Significance of These First Results from the Pfizer Vaccine in Israel
Prof Eran Segal is attached to the Department of Computer Science and Applied Math at Weizmann Institute of Science. His task has been to statistically analyze the first results from the Pfizer vaccine in Israel, and see what we can learn from them.
The Prof believes the key was mass coverage of the most vulnerable groups first. Although the pattern repeated in all age groups including the over-seventies. This is an important finding, especially since this is the first report of this nature to emerge from the pandemic.
The greatest improvement was among the over-sixties who received their vaccines first, and in cities that vaccinated earlier. However, those benefits took longer than the Prof initially expected. The UK variant is now dominant in Israel and may be behind this delay.
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Preview Image: COVID Vaccination Program in Israel
