Israel saw a 60 percent drop in hospitalizations for people aged 60 and over in the three weeks after receiving the first injection of the Pfizer vaccine, an Israeli healthcare provider showed, and only 0.015 percent of people were infected with the coronavirus in the week after receiving your second shot.
Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Services, one of the country’s four HMOs, said on Monday that 128,600 people who received their second injection a week ago, only 20 contracted the coronavirus – correlating with the 95 percent effectiveness shown in the Pfizer’s own clinical trials.
The HMO also revealed that hospitalizations began to decline dramatically over the age of 60, 18 days after receiving the first injection. Maccabi monitored more than 50,000 members.
“These data are very important,” said the head of infectious diseases at Israel’s largest hospital, Sheba Medical Center Galia Rahav, who has nothing to do with the study. The Times of Israel. “It has an impact because in the midst of high rates of infection and the spread of variants, it is difficult to see in general numbers how vaccination is influencing things.
“By providing insight into hospitalizations only among the elderly who have been vaccinated, these data are valuable.”
The same HMO revealed data earlier this month that showed a 60 percent reduction in coronavirus infections three weeks after the first injection.
Among the general population, about 0.65 percent are infected in a given week, The Times of Israel reported citing an important immunologist, a stark contrast to the 0.015% infected after being fully vaccinated.
The report emphasized that Maccabi had no control group, however.
“While these results are impressive, it is important to say that there is no direct control group or data on the demographic and geographic data of vaccinated people,” immunologist Cyrille Cohen told the newspaper.
Anat Ekka Zohar, the Maccabi analyst behind the research, said the excellent results could even prove that “the vaccine is more effective than Pfizer thought it would be based on clinical trials”.
“Although they are very early data, they are important data with wide relevance, as the whole world is looking to Israel for indications about the vaccine’s performance,” she said.