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Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

reuters.com

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Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#221

Post by dm319 »

dazc wrote: post #180
dm319 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data for age group specific data is available freely in the UK. I did a quick analysis in R, and even though all over 75 and most over 70 have been vaccinated, I didn't see any increase in the rate of descent compared to other age groups. So not quite having a public health impact in overall numbers just yet (it's the lockdown that is doing that), but I have no doubt it will eventually. I wonder if part of it is…

My Dad, in the second-tier group of vulnerability [UK], only got his first jab last week and has to wait 11 weeks for his second. We still have a fair way to go before all vulnerable groups have had two jabs.

Yes, some areas are at different stages of the vaccine rollout. One jab provides excellent protection. 10 days after the pfizer jab gives you around 90-95% protection. Most of my colleagues who are more knowledgeable on vaccine science feel that a 12 week gap will provide better overall immunity - most vaccines are given months apart for boosters. The 3 week gap of the trial was likely a design constraint of rushed trials.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#222

Post by StavrosK »

oblio wrote: post #201
thu2111 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers are falling all over the western world; probably because the policy response is largely same and maybe also because the virus' natural cycle is at the same stage. Probably the latter. Mortality doesn't seem to be affected by (covid specific) policy: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27719/w277... https://ideas.repec.org/p/wai/econwp/20-06.html https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/arti…

Interesting. In Luxembourg at least you can see the clear seasonal variation and also the enforcement of stricter lockdowns pretty much 1:1 in death rates and infection rates, accounting for the ~2-3 week delay in infection intervals.

Same in Greece:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/greece/

Lockdown started in November, and relaxed on Jan 15 or so.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#223

Post by readittwice »

pa7x1 wrote: post #115
ummonk wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You cannot know ahead of time for which vaccines you should make a strong bet." Actually you can. When dealing with a pandemic causing the level of disruption we've seen, you throw money at propping up production of every serious vaccine candidate, hoping that at least one of them works out.

We have already done so, the first production was potentially at a loss if the Phase 3 results were not good. And we have done so for each vaccination effort out there. So there is already a lot of oversupply we may be throwing. To be clear, I agree that the return on investment of a quick and successful vaccination campaign is so big that it makes sense to aggressively bet on it. But I also think the evidence shows…

I don't have confidence that (in the case of the EU) the same politicians that just claimed that they couldn't foresee any problems with mass production, did everything they could've done to ramp up production last summer. On the contrary the EU ordered quite late and less than they got offered from the vendors. In addition, the EU doubled the ordered doses only this January from 300M (100M of those were optional) to 600M from Biontech, after some EU member states also made additional orders. Imagine these orders would've been made in July. That might have provided the financial incentive for the vendor to e.g. ramp up an additional production line or factory in summer. I can't say whether this would have helped or not, but I certainly don't have the feeling the EU did everything they could have done to make the vaccine available as soon as possible.

My 81-year old grandparents will get their first dose of vaccine on February 28, while other countries are already vaccinating much younger people.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#224

Post by hef19898 »

readittwice wrote: post #211
akie wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's true, but it also has to be said that producing these vaccines is not so simple. It's all new technology, no mRNA vaccine was ever approved before, and you can't just dial up production so easily. Unfortunately. You can't just convert any old pill-factory into a factory that produces these vaccines. Apparently there are supply chain issues as well - some of the things that are needed for the production of…

I can absolutely imagine that scaling production is extremely hard. However I don't have confidence that the same politicians that just claimed that they couldn't foresee problems with mass production did everything in their power to help here last summer. I mean the EU ordered only in November from Biontech and Moderna (and less doses than the companies offered). That doesn't really look like an incentive for compan…

Just throwing the same numbers in here: The EU ordered 4+ doses per inhabitant by Q4 2020. Deliveries were intially scheduled through Q3 2021, with enough doses to be delivered to reach herd immnity by end of Q2. Not sure how ordering even more, without knowing when said doses would have been available, had helped.

EU politician really screwed up in summer 2020, so. They had, besides ordering (which was outsourced to the EU anyway), one job. Planning and setting up operations to vaccinate millions of people in the first 6 months of 2021. That would have included coordination between patient appointments, manufcturing and deliveries (invlving the EU ideally), making sure back-up plans are in place, getting processes up and running to make it as easy as possible to get vaccinated, making sure manufacturers can get necessary support in securing their upstream supply chains when needed and so on.

None of that happened. Instead, everyone was so, so happy that Europe had a great summer vacation. And then everyone so so hoped the unsurprising increase in cases starting in October would be just go away. And then everybody so so hoped they could safe Christmas shopping and christmas markets, And then everybody fell back to the only lesson they learned during the first wave: people like politicians that act tough. They just din't realise that back then acting tough, read lockdowns, was inline with expert advice. Basically, the EU had over six months to get ready for an EU-wide vaccination campaign. Member states had also 6 months. And did, it seems, by no means enough, if they did anything at all.

This now shows, and everyone is just happy to point at manufacturers and the EU. We'll see how long that story is going to hold water.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#225

Post by jacquesm »

dogma1138 wrote: post #171
jacquesm wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And pays more than 10x as much per dose.

Israel is paying about $30 a dose about twice the Pfizer listed price in the US and EU not 10 times more. It’s paying 10 times more when comparing to the AZ vaccine but that’s not apples to apples.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/the-cost-of-vaccinating-is...

says $47 / dose

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#226

Post by pfortuny »

smiley1437 wrote: post #217
it_robot wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ehhhh im not sure how you are reading this but the chart looks quite bad

it looks that way because it's a relative chart - exaggerates the uptick in hospitalizations of unvaccinated non-elderly people If you toggle the 'relative' button you'll see the actual numbers - basically, hospitalization count for vaccinated elders is is decreasing, and the hospitalization of unvaccinated non-elders is slightly increasing.

Yes, not such a great idea to plot that without totals...

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#227

Post by top_sigrid »

ulfw wrote: post #51
top_sigrid wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not to sure you have that right. Europe's mistake was to spread vaccine orders with manufacturers without ordering enough from each. For Germany the numbers publicly reported have gotten more conrete the last few weeks. While there are only few doses for the first quater (about 18mio for 9 mio people ~ 11% of the population), in the second quarter there will be lots of doses delivered. Confirmed numbers are, tha…

Yea but that's for first dosage given until end of June. That's still 4.5 months away. A long time considering thousands of infections and hundreds of deaths. Maybe paying a bit more would have been more intelligent (see Israel) than negotiating for months on end.

Sure. It could also be that the end of the second quarter only means that the doses are delivered on 30th of June and that actual vaccination will be a little later than that. And yes, 4.5 month is a long time, i just wanted to point out that until the end of the summer probably everybody who wants to will have a chance to be vaccinated - at least in Germany. That is though if the organization of actually vaccinating people keeps up with that.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#228

Post by tpm »

ekvilibrist wrote: post #56
jansan wrote: post #10

The Google COVID-19 statistics for Israel show that cases and deaths are declining, but not at a faster rate than elsewhere in the world. Reported deaths lag behind sometimes for weeks and new deaths were caused by infections weeks ago, so vaccination may not have much effect on deaths, yet. But the number of positive tests should have gone down considerably with 50% of the population vaccinated. Are all these aympto…

This is amongst a study of 600k Israelis, which is about 6% of the population. I believe their deal was that the entire population would be supplied the vaccine in exchange for their medical data, which is why Israel far ahead of most of the world in vaccination rate. But its still only 70% done if my googled source isn't way off. So still too early to see large scale effects.

it's not 70% done, it's about 70 vaccines per 100 people, at 2 vaccines per person it should be 140 vaccines per 100 people to get to 70% of the population vaccinated.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#229

Post by _ink_ »

ancymon wrote: post #17

As I understand, for example in Europe Pfizer is producing vaccines in single factory and not in sufficient number. Why production doesn't happen in more places? Couldn't they sell license to other European pharmaceutical companies to produce it? Is production process so unique it can't be replicated in other places?

Producing vaccines is difficult and it takes time to ramp up production. But the German government also failed miserably here. Probably they did not believe in the success of the mRNA technology in the first place. But once it became obvious that it is a success they also showed no interest in ramping up production and ramping it up fast. The German law would allow to take away the patent of BioNtech and allow anyone to help with the production. So they would have some leverage if BioNtach were the ones that would slow down the ramp up. They decided to not go this path and I am not sure why. I can understand when a company says, look we have limited resources and we do as much as we can. I cannot understand that when it comes to the government as it has basically unlimited resources when it comes down to money. This is a huge failure of the EU administration / German government. Ursula van der Leyen should step down. Angela Merkel will not run again anyway.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#230

Post by corty »

EvgeniyZh wrote: post #215
corty wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death usually comes 2 to 4 weeks after hospitalization which comes 1 to 2 weeks after infection. So the drop in death rates should be visible 2 to 4 weeks after the drop in hospitalizations, and should be less steep initially.

There was large amount of 60+ vaccinated with second dose 2 to 4 weeks ago. Iirc it was at least 50%. If half of population responsible for 90% of deaths is vaccinated it should affect death-per-case ratio.

Vaccinated with a second dose means full immunity 1 week after, possible death 3 to 7 weeks after (1 + (1 to 2) + (2 to 4)). So a decline should start to be visible since last week maybe. But I wouldn't get nervous for another 2 to 3 weeks in case it doesn't fall sharply, data is always noisy and everything is spread out the more dependencies on previous events and times there are.
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