The Pfizer vaccine not only prevents infection, but also reduces the risk of contracting a serious case of COVID-19, show new data released Sunday by the Clalit Health Services.
The data, based on a study of 1,200,000 people – 600,000 who received the vaccine and 600,000 who did not – showed 94% fewer cases of symptomatic coronavirus and 92% fewer cases of serious illness among those who were vaccinated.
The study showed that the vaccine was as effective among people aged 70 and over as it was among younger participants. Among those vaccinated, about 170,000 people were over 60 years old.
The Pfizer vaccine was also found to be most effective one week after the second dose, reflecting the company’s own clinical studies.
In a preliminary examination of the results, after 14 days or more since people received their second dose, the vaccines have shown to be even more effective in preventing serious and symptomatic diseases, said Prof. Ran Balicer, head of innovation at Clalit.
The control group was carefully adjusted to ensure it was equal to those who were vaccinated, including based on the level of risk of developing a serious infection, health status, age and more, according to Clalit.
Events such as quarantine and changes in vaccination guidelines were also accounted for.
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These results are the first of what is expected to be a series of studies launched by the Clalit Research Institute to evaluate the vaccine’s effectiveness in several and diverse groups, said Balicer.
“For weeks, we developed tools and methodologies to deal with the many biases that characterize this type of research in real-world data,” he said, adding that Clalit worked with colleagues at Harvard University to conduct a series of tests to validate the results. .
Last week, Maccabi Healthcare Services shared preliminary data on its own vaccination campaign, noting that less than 0.1% of individuals who received their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine contracted COVID-19.
Maccabi showed that the vaccine’s effectiveness in Israel is 93%. Pfizer’s Phase III clinical trial showed it to be 95% effective.
Clalit said it has distributed more than 3.2 million first and second doses of vaccines.
In total, Israel administered more than 6.3 million doses of vaccine.