Short story: vaccines work. Data from the Israeli implementation of the Pfizer vaccine, conducted in a comprehensive campaign, show that it is also working quickly. Only the first shot significantly reduces the risk of transmission, with estimates ranging from 33% to 60%. It is precisely the impact one would expect to see from a vaccine in a pandemic, but so far it had not yet been quantified.
This calls into question the slow deployment of vaccines in the masses today:
Initial data from the Israeli vaccination campaign show that the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine reduces infections by 50% 14 days after the first of the two shots is given, a senior Health Ministry official said on Tuesday. that severe cases of COVID-19 in the country, daily infections and total assets all cases reach all-time highs.
Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of the public health department at the Ministry of Health, told Channel 12 News that the data were preliminary and based on the results of coronavirus testing both among those who have received the vaccine and among those who no.
Israeli health care organizations released other, somewhat contradictory, data on Tuesday evening. Channel 13 News said that according to data released by Clalit, Israel’s largest health care provider, the chance of a person becoming infected with the coronavirus decreased by 33% 14 days after the vaccine. Separate figures recorded by the Maccabi health care provider and broadcast by Channel 12 showed that the vaccine caused a 60% drop in the chances of infection 14 days after making the first shot.
As noted, Israel’s transmission rates have not demonstrated the full impact of this phenomenon, but nonetheless, the news is encouraging. He suggests that extensive vaccination programs would slow the rate of community transmission almost immediately and that the second shot would be reduced if it were given widely enough. Israel has only reached 20% of its population with the first shot, which is much further than the US has achieved, but Israel’s population is also much smaller and more concentrated.
The lesson here is to vaccinate as many people as possible with your first shot. Perhaps the CDC took a look at Israeli data in making its policy change yesterday, but it seems to be rather the perverse incentives of the stricter deployment regime they enacted for the first time. This led to the destruction of doses to avoid draconian sanctions for out-of-rule vaccinations, a result that is not only infuriating, but utterly counterproductive. Now, New York is dismantling these perverse incentives, at least in terms of inoculating seniors and those with severe comorbidities, but only after a huge public backlash over the ridiculous results of its application with force.
It may be too restrictive a plan. If we want to reduce transmission rates to completely reopen our economies, we need to inoculate entire populations quickly. This means that supply and distribution problems are solved, of course, but the best plan might be to deliver these doses to existing private sector distribution channels and let them pass first, served first. Let Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Target, and other pharmacies get it from the manufacturer enough arms to seriously bend the curve down. This will also help protect the vulnerable by making COVID-19 less obvious to the population, perhaps as soon as a week or two after a serious and wide-ranging launch begins.
We get it. Quickly.