Daily US Times: More data from Israel’s Covid-19 vaccination programme is suggesting the Pfizer vaccine prevents 94% of symptomatic infections.
This proves the vaccine is performing just as well in a larger population as it did in the clinical trials.
According to public health doctor Prof Hagai Levine, the vaccine is proving highly effective at preventing illness and severe disease among all age groups.
He said “high vaccination coverage of the most susceptible groups” was key.
Israel’s largest health fund Clalit looked at positive tests in 600,000 vaccinated people and the same number of unvaccinated people, matched by health status and age.
It found 94% fewer virus infections among the vaccinated group.
This was based on test results in people’s medical records, usually taken if they were a close contact of someone who had tested positive or if they had symptoms.
And the Pfizer vaccine prevented almost all cases of serious illness.
This pattern was the same in all age groups – including those over-70s, who may have been under-represented in clinical trials.
The data has not formally published yet.
But Prof Levine said it “sends a message to other countries such as the UK” about the usefulness of the vaccine, and the need to get “very high” coverage of the groups most likely to become very ill from the virus.
The health expert said he could not put a number on what proportion of the population would need to be immunised before restrictions could ease.
He said: “We still don’t know what the impact is on transmission.”
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