People receive a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine inside a Covid-19 mass vaccination center in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Monday, January 4, 2020.
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Israel’s largest healthcare provider on Sunday reported a 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 infections among 600,000 people who received two doses of Pfizer vaccine in the country’s largest study to date.
The health maintenance organization (HMO) Clalit, which covers more than half of all Israelis, said the same group was also 92% less likely to develop serious virus diseases.
The comparison was made with a group of the same size, with matching medical records, who had not received the vaccine.
“It unequivocally shows that the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine is extremely effective in the real world a week after the second dose, as found in the clinical study,” said Ran Balicer, head of innovation at Clalit.
He added that the data indicate that the Pfizer vaccine, developed in collaboration with the German BioNTech, is even more effective two weeks or more after the second shot.
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, who have been tabulating national data, said Sunday that a sharp decline in hospitalization and serious diseases previously identified among the first age group to be vaccinated was observed for the first time ( aged 60 or over). those aged 55 or over.
Hospitalizations and serious illnesses were still increasing in younger groups who began vaccinating themselves weeks later.
Israel has carried out a rapid implementation of vaccines and its database provides information on the effectiveness of the vaccine and when countries could achieve herd immunity.