Four serious cases of COVID, no deaths

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A year ago we were wondering if an effective coronavirus vaccine for humans could ever be developed. Six months ago we were wondering if any of the ongoing vaccines would be really effective or if 50% effectiveness was the best we could expect.

Today, looking at these figures, I wonder if the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines are the most momentous medical breakthrough since the polio vaccine.

Note that the fully vaccinated segment of the population in Israel is shrinking rather soon. According to the latest data, 80% of Israelis aged 60 and over have received both shots, while only 20% of those aged 16-59. The vaccine has eliminated deaths from COVID and has almost completely eliminated severe cases of COVID among the * most susceptible * demographic groups to these results.

Salvation:

An Israeli healthcare provider that has vaccinated half a million people with the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine says only 544 people (or 0.1%) have been subsequently diagnosed with the coronavirus, there have been four serious cases and there are no dead people.

That means the effectiveness rate stands at 93 percent, Maccabi Healthcare Services announced Thursday, after comparing its immunized members to a “diverse” control group of unvaccinated members …

Of the 523,000 people completely vaccinated, 544 were infected with COVID-19, of which 15 needed hospitalization: eight in mild condition, three in moderate condition and four in severe condition.

So if you’ve had both lives, you have about one in 1,000 chances of being infected, one in 35,000 chances of being sent to the hospital, and one in every 130,000 chances of having a truly worrisome one. Box. And again, this is a sample that includes a huge percentage of older, previously vulnerable people. The vaccine has lifted the cloud of COVID from the heads of Israeli elderly people.

So much so, in fact, that Israeli hospitals are seeing more new patients under the age of 60 hospitalized for the disease than more than 60:

An elderly person immunized in Israel appears to have a stronger immune response to the coronavirus than an unimmunized person under the age of 60. The graph on the right here also shows the curve of hospitalizations by age that begin to change as vaccines increase:

The obvious wrinkle is that these data only tell us the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines. Vaccines that are still being prepared, such as Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, use different means to elicit an immune response and have not reached 95% efficacy levels in clinical trials such as Pfizer and Moderna. Biden’s pandemic advisers released a group yesterday that warned people not to hang on to efficiency rates. It would be great if all vaccines were as effective as Pfizer in preventing infection, but when the push occurs, no one cares about the infection. We are concerned about serious cases and deaths. A vaccine that did not prevent you from getting sick, but that did prevent you from having worse symptoms than coughing and low-grade fever for a few days would be a great triumph, with a death toll of 500,000. And the good news, say Biden advisers, is that all the major vaccines tested so far (all) have been 100% effective in preventing bad test results.

The seven COVID-19 vaccines that have completed major efficacy trials (Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Novavax, AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, and Sinovac) appear to be 100% effective for serious complications. No vaccinated person has become ill enough to require hospitalization. Not a single vaccinated person has died of COVID-19.

Not all infections are the same. People vaccinated against viruses still sometimes get infected. But thanks to a vaccine-prepared immune system, infections never progress to serious illness. Vaccine efficacy rates only vary with respect to mild disease forms of COVID-19. When it comes to the measures that really matter (hospitalizations and death), they are all functionally the same.

The reason the opinion was published was to encourage Americans not to resist an mRNA vaccine if it is not available locally once you have chosen the vaccine. People who follow the news about COVID already know that Pfizer and Moderna are extremely effective in preventing infection, while the Johnson & Johnson product, at least according to trial data, is a little less so. Some will be tempted to transmit J&J for this reason, waiting until the mRNA products are back in stock. But that’s a bad idea, like choosing to go into battle without a bulletproof vest, because the vest model you prefer will run out at this point. When the push gets to push, any vest that stops the bullet is fine. And in the case of COVID, from what scientists can say so far, every “vest” that is on the market or that will soon perform that task.

By the way, while Israel’s vaccination effort continues to advance, they have recently begun to loosen:

To some extent, this descent is a simple matter of fewer unvaccinated people walking around. But it also suggests that Israel has run into the outer limits of the vaccine-skeptical part of the population. It’s easy to get people to get vaccinated quickly at first if you have an efficient delivery system, as anyone with gung will queue up without the need for encouragement. But now they have gone through this group. It’s time to start working on the search engines to move towards herd immunity.

Instead of an exit question, read this story about modern FDA technology to include 14 doses of your vaccine in your vials instead of 10, a boost that will quickly increase supply by 20 percent. This is the good news. The bad news is that more doses on each vial poses a risk of wasting doses if the entire supply has not been used within six hours of opening. Good luck to the next Dr. Gokal, who ends up being fired and prosecuted for trying to do the right thing in this situation.

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