Data from Israel – which has vaccinated its elderly population in recent weeks – suggests that mass vaccination may prevent the spread of severe COVID-19 symptoms, reports CNBC.
The study – published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – is one of the first real-world data sets of how the vaccine is impacting the world. All vaccines have been previously reviewed in clinical trials.
- These are real-world data, showing how the vaccine is actually working in the world, according to The Los Angeles Times.
According to the survey, the percentage of patients who required ventilation for severe COVID-19 fell significantly after vaccinations in the country.
- “Taken together, these results suggest reduced rates of severe COVID-19 after vaccination,” wrote the researchers, who work at Ben Gurion University in Negev, Tel-Aviv University and Maccabi Health Services, according to the CNBC.
- “What we see here are early and very encouraging signs that the vaccine is working in the population,” said Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, according to Nature.com.
A look at the numbers
Israel has been one of the top vaccination countries, according to The New York Times. So far, about 84% of the country’s population aged 70 and over has been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to CNBC.