JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s rapid rollout of vaccines makes it the largest real-world study of Pfizer Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine. The results are trickling in and they are very promising.
More than half of eligible Israelis – about 3.5 million people – are now fully or partially vaccinated. Older and at-risk groups, the first to be vaccinated, are seeing a dramatic drop in disease rates.
Among the first fully vaccinated group, there was a 53% decrease in new cases, a 39% decrease in hospital admissions and a 31% decrease in serious illness from mid-January to February 6, said Eran Segal, data scientist at the Weizmann Institute. of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
(Image: trends in COVID-19 infections and post-vaccination hospital admissions in Israel -)
During the same period, among people under 60 years of age who were later eligible for injections, new cases decreased by 20%, but hospitalizations and serious illness increased by 15% and 29%, respectively.
Reuters interviewed leading scientists in Israel and abroad, Israeli health officials, hospital managers and two of the country’s top healthcare providers on what new data shows from the world’s most efficient vaccine rollout.
The vaccination drive has yielded a database that provides insight into how effective the vaccines are outside of controlled clinical trials, and at what point countries could achieve sought-after but elusive herd immunity.
More will become known in two weeks as teams analyze the effectiveness of vaccines in younger groups of Israelis, as well as target groups such as people with diabetes, cancer and pregnant women, among a patient base at least 10 times larger than those in clinical studies.
“We need enough variety of people in that subgroup and enough follow-up time for you to make the right conclusions, and we’re getting to that point,” said Ran Balicer, HMO Clalit’s chief innovation officer, who has more than half of the Israeli population.
Pfizer follows the Israeli rollout weekly for insights that can be used around the world.
As a small country with universal healthcare, advanced data capabilities and the promise of a rapid rollout, Israel offered Pfizer a unique opportunity to study the true impact of the vaccine developed with Germany’s BioNTech.
But the company said it “remains difficult to predict the exact time at which herd protection may manifest itself” because of the many variables at play, including social distance measures and the number of new infections generated by each case, known as the reproduction speed.
Even Israel, at the forefront of the global vaccination push, has lowered expectations of getting out of the pandemic quickly due to rising cases.
A third national lockdown has struggled to contain transmission, attributed to the rapidly spreading British strain of the virus. On the positive side, the Pfizer / BioNTech shot appears to be effective against it.
“We have found the same 90% to 95% efficacy against the UK strain so far,” said Hezi Levi, director general of the Israeli Ministry of Health.
“It is still early, however, as we have only just finished the first week after the second dose,” he said, adding, “It is too early to say anything about the South African variety.”
WHICH ARM?
Israel began its vaccination program on December 19 – the day after Hanukkah – after paying a premium for the delivery of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
Four days later, the more contagious British variant was discovered in four people. While the vaccine prevents disease in the elderly, the variant now makes up about 80% of new cases.
When they found themselves in a race between the vaccine and the new variant, Israel began firing shots at people over 60 and gradually opened the program to the rest of the population.
Every detail was digitally recorded, into which arm the patient was inserted and from which bottle it came.
According to Maccabi, a leading Israeli health care provider, 254 of the 416,900 people were infected a week after receiving the second dose of Pfizer – the point at which full protection is expected to take effect.
(Image: COVID-19 Infections Among Vaccinated People -)
Comparing this with an unvaccinated group showed a vaccine effectiveness of 91%, Maccabi said.
No infections were recorded 22 days after complete vaccination.
Israeli experts are convinced that instead of lockdown measures, the vaccines pushed the numbers down, based on studying different cities, age groups and pre-vaccine lockdowns.
The comparisons were “convincing to tell us this is the effect of the vaccination,” said Segal of the Weizmann Institute.
With 80% of seniors fully or partially vaccinated, a more complete picture will emerge this week.
“And we expect a further decrease in the total number of cases and in the cases of severe morbidity,” said Balicer of HMO Clalit.
VACCINES AND TRANSMISSION
There may be early signs that vaccinations reduce virus transmission in addition to disease
At Israel’s largest COVID-19 testing center, run by MyHeritage, researchers have noted a significant decrease in the number of virus-infected people, known as cT value, among the most vaccinated age groups.
This suggests that even if vaccinated people become infected, they are less likely to infect others, said Yaniv Erlich, MyHeritage’s chief science officer.
“The data so far is probably most clear from Israel. I really believe these vaccines will reduce further transmission, ”said Stefan Baral of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Maryland.
REDUCE RETURNS
It is unclear whether Israel will be able to maintain its leading rate of vaccination.
“If you vaccinate quickly and a lot, you end up with the hardcore – the ones that are less willing or harder to reach,” said Boaz Lev, head of the Health Department’s advisory panel.
The rate of vaccination is seen even more important by the rapid transmission of the British variant.
“In the race between the spread of the British variant and the vaccinations, the end result is that we are seeing some sort of plateau in terms of severely ill,” Segal said.
The big question is whether vaccines can wipe out the pandemic.
Michal Linial, a professor of molecular biology and bioinformatics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said data from the past few decades suggests viruses are becoming endemic and seasonal.
She predicted that this coronavirus would become much less aggressive and should get a boost maybe within three years.
“The virus isn’t going anywhere,” she concluded.
Additional reporting by Dan Williams, Ronen Zvulun, Steven Scheer and Julie Steenhuysen; Written by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Bill Berkrot