Israel’s rapid vaccination effort provides important information about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Reuters reporters spoke to top scientists in Israel and elsewhere, Israeli health officials, heads of hospitals and two of the country’s largest health care providers. The aim was to find the latest information on the country’s extremely fast vaccination campaign.
About 3.5 million Israelis have been vaccinated in whole or in part. That is, more than half of the people in the groups should be vaccinated first. These groups show a marked decrease in infections.
Eran Segal is a data scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. He said there was a 53% reduction in new cases in the first fully vaccinated group. In addition, there were 39% fewer hospitalizations and a 31% decrease in severe illness from mid-January to Feb. 6, Segal said.
More information will be known in two weeks, as teams study the effectiveness of the vaccine in younger groups of Israelis and people with certain conditions.
“We must have enough variety of people in that subgroup and enough follow-up time to be able to do it correctly conclusionsand we get to that moment, ”Ran Balicer said. He is an official of the Israeli health care provider Clalit.
Pfizer follows the Israeli effort each week to understand more about the vaccine and how it works.
Israel’s campaign offers Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech in Germany, an unusual chance. The small country has healthcare for all its citizens and the ability to collect and study data. Israel also quickly offered the vaccine to its citizens.
Israel is still facing struggles in its effort to fight the virus. The third citizen of the country quarantine did not slow the spread of COVID-19. A rapid spread alternative of the virus that was first found in the UK is now spreading to Israel. So far, the Pfizer / BioNTech shooting seems to be effective against it.
“So far, we have identified the same 90% to 95% effectiveness compared to the British strainHezi Levi said. He is the director general of the Israeli Ministry of Health.
The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses or vaccines to be effective. For this reason, Levi said it is too early to know about protection levels, as many people received the second dose only in the last week. He added that it was still too early to know if the vaccine was effective against another variant of the rapidly spreading virus that had started in South Africa.
Good results so far
Israel began its vaccination program on December 19. He paid a high price for the supply of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
Four days later, the fast-growing British version was found in four people in Israel.
After that, Israel decided to start firing on people over the age of 60. Over time, he opened the program for the rest of the population.
Information gathered by Israeli healthcare provider Maccabi shows that only six out of 10,000 people became infected with COVID-19 one week after receiving the second dose of Pfizer. At 22 days after complete vaccination, no infections were reported.
Pfizer says the vaccine will start one week after the second dose.
An important question is whether vaccines can end the pandemic. Michal Linial is a professor of molecular biology and bioinformatics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She said past data suggests that viruses are becoming endemic and seasonal.
She predicted that the coronavirus would become much less aggressive, possibly requiring an additional stroke within three years.
She added: “The virus is not going anywhere.”
I’m Mario Ritter Jr.
Maayan Lubell and Ari Rabinovitch reported the story to Reuters. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.
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Words in this story
variety –N. a number or a collection of different things or people
conclusion –N. an opinion or a final judgment
strain –N. a group of closely related creatures
dose –N. the amount of medicine or vaccine needed to cure or help a condition
contagious –Adj. capable of being transmitted from one person or animal to another
endemic –N. common to a place
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