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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

#421

Post by bzbarsky »

jounker wrote: post #417
bzbarsky wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there was some pre-production, I disagree that vaccine supply is the only binding constraint we have going on. And the lack of sane regulatory approvals and sane distribution setups has been heartrending. If you look at https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-glo... and scroll down to "U.S. Vaccination Campaign" you will see that in the US 74.5% of the vaccine doses that have been delivered hav…

> And I should note that I can imagine various poverty-and-social-whatever issues D.C. might be facing, but they don't obviously apply to Rhode Island in the same way. I don’t think this is true. Rhode Island has tremendous wealth disparity. https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20180210/studies-inco...

I am very aware that Rhode Island has significant numbers of people in poverty, especially around Providence. I don't think it's anywhere close to DC's situation, though I could be wrong, of course.

And just to be clear, right behind DC and Rhode Island we have Alabama (OK, maybe poverty). Then just a few % above them New Hampshire, Kansas, Alaska, Pennsylvania.

These are all quite different from each other on various socio-economic and geographical axes.

And of course the states with the most successful vaccination campaigns in the US (with ~98% of vaccine supply used) are West Virginia, North Dakota, and New Mexico. Which are also quite different from each other in various socio-economic ways.

So it's hard to blame the socio-economic angle for the state-by-state disparities here, though I would be quite willing to look at data showing otherwise.

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

#422

Post by siculars »

tehjoker wrote: post #401
YZF wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's an unreasonably high standard to expect Israel to vaccinate Palestanians in the occupied territories before Israelis. Going from that stance to saying (all?) Israelis treat Palestinians as subhuman is also a bit of a stretch. Are Americans treating Canadians as subhumans by not allowing Pfizer to ship vaccines from its US factory to Canada? In Judaism "the poor of your city" come first. What other countr…

I think giving first priority to Israeli citizens when Palestine is under occupation is the definition of second class. There should be some kind of even distribution based on proportion of population. If they don't want the responsibility, they should withdraw barricades and forces from Palestine.

See how well that turned out in Gaza. Regardless of final status outcomes, defended borders will remain. If only the PA did not pay for slay[0] and had enough money to secure vaccines on the open market.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_...

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

#423

Post by aquadrop »

bluGill wrote: post #233
aquadrop wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I was wondering that very much myself. I remember talks about ramping up production preemptively, starting from spring, to have large stock of vaccine available when they are approved. Bill Gates talked about that specifically, taking like first 5 most promising vaccine candidates and starting production ramp up immediately, even risking the possibility they will not be approved and wasting some money. I thought…

Pfizer and moderna were not in the most promising vaccines list. MRNA was too new and untried. I'm not sure why Oxford/az wasn't ramped up more though, they were the ones everyone was waiting for.

Moderna received WARP funding though, I think they definitely were on the list of most promising vaccines. There were 6 most promising western vaccines: Biontech, Moderna, J&J, Oxford, Novavax and Sanofi. It was clear they were the ones needing preemptive production. Sanofi didn't play out, but others are doing ok.

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

#424

Post by siculars »

nir wrote: post #405
2-tpg wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel has one of the best biowarfare offense and defense in the world. For them, Iran releasing a bioengineered pathogen is a legit threat. The El-Al flight that crashed in Amsterdam in 1992 was carrying materials to produce large quantities of Sarin for the purpose of testing gas masks. Israel is specifically suited to treat COVID as a test-run for a biowarfare attack. A real War Effort, because it is one.

Actually it's the HMO system here, much more than the military. Every Israeli, by law, has healthcare insurance. It works much like income tax - deducted automatically from your pay, varies according to income level, and is transferred directly to the HMO you pick among several options which compete (quite vigorously) with each other.

Na. Lots of places have socialized medicine like Israel. Not many of them, if any of them, are having the successful rollout Israel is enjoying. The entire Israeli society is prepared for this sort of event more so than any other in the world. Civil society, healthcare (as you pointed out), military and, dare I say, even religious all work together to pull this off.

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

#425

Post by helge9210 »

melkhior wrote: post #406
helge9210 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as "external IDF medics". If you're putting some medic in uniform you have to pull him from some healthcare provider or hospital.

Why? Some people who are recruited as medics into IDF wouldn't have thought about being medics before that. They also have to serve their Army service either way.

Those who are on active duty are... on active duty. So you have to pull someone from the reserve. So instead of doing what they are doing at normal jobs they would be doing what IDF tells them to do. And no one would be doing their normal jobs.

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

#426

Post by helge9210 »

marshmallow_12 wrote: post #368
helge9210 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Haredim way of life is less than 250 years old. I would say, less than 80 years old. In most normal countries this kind of behavior would be called "destructive totalitarian sect".

wanting to practice religion freely cannot be called "destructive" or "totalitarian". certainly no more than the blm riots in america. Those were certainly destructive and (imho)somewhat totalitarian in their desire to impose their agenda on everyone. The way i see it you have 2 options; either acknowledge you are wrong that normal countries wouldn't call this out as such, or explain why the blm riots are quantifiabl…

Practicing religion freely is OK. Forcing members of the community to practice religion is not OK. Children are denied access to education beyond religious. They are forbidden to study math, English, Hebrew, they don't have access to internet. They are denied access to justice system and law enforcement. Sometimes they are denied necessary medical attention because of religious beliefs of the adults (for example, relative of my colleague got his shoulders dislocated at age of 5, his uncle didn't allow to call for MADA until Shabbat is over, so he screamed for hours until evening).

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

#427

Post by tguvot »

chaosite wrote: post #392
tguvot wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

healthcare providers in Israel have centralized systems/databases for at least 20 if not 30 years the only "digitization" over past decade, it's shiny websites.

You're right, the digitization effort was around 2000 or so. But you're presenting that as somehow being bad, while it's actually better than what a lot of other countries have.

I don't present it as something bad. I adjust a timeline by a decade or so :)

And as somebody who currently resides in USA, I am well aware that it's better compared to local state of affairs

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

#428

Post by jimbokun »

mjevans wrote: post #390
jimbokun wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's almost entirely a supply issue? Israel, UK and USA procured large amount of doses ahead of time, and now EU is having trouble getting enough doses for their population. That was my understanding.

It still seems far too slow in the US. 'Warp Speed' got us to the finish line, but all out of breath and without the need to still plan and execute taking advantage of the race's completion. Reminds me that historically 'we' got to the moon, and then like 50 years later are only reaching the point of maybe going back again, hopefully regularly this time.

According to this:

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

US has fourth fastest vaccination rate per capita, behind Israel, UAE, and UK.

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

#429

Post by zbrozek »

mattzito wrote: post #413
zbrozek wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really hard to grok why 15-vs-10 doses in a bottle should be a problem. Sure you've got the out-of-fridge time, but that hardly seems like an issue when the population is itching to get vaccinated.

My understanding is that they wanted to validate that the additional needle insertions through the vial doesn't damage the seal enough to cause contamination.

Is the seal important if the vial is going to be fully used up ~now? Presumably the needle has to be clean regardless of whether the seal exists at all (e.g., it could be dirty inside the bore and the seal state would be irrelevant), so the seal's purpose is to prevent contamination from the environment when there is no needle present. That kind of contamination takes time to happen and more time to incubate, and if the open lifespan of the vial is only a few hours is that important? Seems like that minor uncertainty is a good trade for swifter execution.

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

#430

Post by PacketPaul »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #31
kjakm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has (first-dose) vaccinated close to a quarter of the population now. Given the vast population difference between it and Israel it seems to be doing pretty well too.

Yes, currently the UK is vaccinating at rates of up to 600,000 per day. That's about 3x the top daily rate of, say, France.

The US was over 1 million/day during the last days of the Trump administration. I imagine now we are well beyond that level.
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