A single dose of the Pfizers vaccine may be less effective than the drugmaker indicated, Israeli Tsar COVID-19 warned.
Nachman Ash – Israel’s equivalent of Dr. Anthony Fauci – said the protection afforded by the first dose is “less effective than we thought,” Army Radio reported.
“Many people are infected between the first and second injection of the vaccine,” Ash said, adding that the protective effect “appears to be lower than [the data] presented by Pfizer. “
The pharmaceutical giant has claimed that studies show that it is about 52 percent effective about 12 days after receiving the first injection, the BBC reported.
But that level of protection rises to 95 percent about two weeks after the second dose.
It is unclear how effective the shot has been for the more than 2 million Israelis who have already received the first dose.
Questions were raised about the vaccine’s performance after health officials announced 10,000 new cases on Monday, the highest number since the start of the pandemic.
Experts have repeatedly warned that one dose of the vaccine does not provide full immunity and that social distance measures still need to be taken to get the pandemic under control.