Two Pfizer doses ‘are 99.96% effective’: double shot weeks apart prevents nearly ALL cases of Covid-19, research in Israel suggests
- Israeli research has found that only 0.04 percent of those vaccinated with both doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine developed the coronavirus.
- Of the 700,000 people vaccinated, only 300 later received Covid-19, of which only 16 required hospital treatment, according to preliminary data
- The vaccine also protects against the more contagious British variant, research suggests
Nearly all cases of Covid are prevented with two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, research suggests.
Data collected in Israel – which is leading the world in the rollout of vaccines – showed that only 0.04 percent of those vaccinated with both doses developed the coronavirus.
Of the 700,000 people vaccinated, only 300 later contracted the virus, of which only 16 required hospital treatment, according to preliminary data released by Israeli health officials.
The vaccine also protects against the more contagious British variant of Covid-19, the research suggests.
Professor Eyal Leshem, an Israeli infectious disease specialist, said the reports were “very good news.” He added: ‘The initial findings are pretty incredible.
Nearly all cases of Covid are prevented with two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, research suggests. Data collected in Israel – which is leading the world in the rollout of vaccines – showed that only 0.04 percent of those vaccinated with both doses developed the coronavirus. Pictured: A man receives a dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine in Tel Aviv, Israel on Tuesday
After one dose the cases fell substantially and after two there were only 0.4 percent.
“Only time will tell, we have yet to collect data, but these are very encouraging preliminary reports.”
More than 30 percent of the Israeli population has received a vaccine and several studies are underway on its effectiveness.
Professor Leshem added: “On the one hand, we are seeing very high transmission rates in the community with thousands of cases per day – the highest rates we’ve seen since the outbreak started.
But if we look specifically at these hundreds of thousands of vaccinated Israelis, they don’t get infected.
Pictured: Health workers at the Maccabi Health vaccination center administer doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine in the parking lot of the Givatayim shopping center in Tel Aviv, Israel on Tuesday
And even in the few cases who do become infected, they experience mild illness – only a handful had to go to the hospital, only a handful got serious illness and had to be hospitalized.
“It’s what we call the real, ecological evidence of the vaccine’s efficacy – the high efficacy of the vaccine.”
The majority of those vaccinated were over 60, which makes the results even more remarkable, he added.
Initial studies have also shown a significant decrease in the number of cases among those who have had one dose of the vaccine.
Israel provides Pfizer weekly data updates on its vaccine campaign as part of a collaboration agreement.
- Iran must buy the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine through the back door, despite the ban on ‘unreliable’ British vaccines, a leaked document shows. Iran banned vaccines from the UK and US on Jan. 8, but in a dramatic turnaround, the country would purchase 36 million doses of the Oxford vaccine through India.