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

reuters.com

451–460 of 460 posts

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

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And is number 1 for total amount of covid vaccines given.

That’s huge when you realize manufacturing capabilities don’t come online overnight. The us secured the large majority of supply.

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

#452

The vaccine has 95% efficacy in initial controlled trials. It is almost impossible to reach (within 1%) of that same level of effectiveness in the real world as claimed here. The real world has a big chunk of the population with an immune system that doesn't respond nearly as well to the vaccine (such as the elderly). Here is an overview of an Israeli study that was finding a more realistic effectiveness of 70% https…

I don't understand your comment. The phase III study was done I'm the real world, not a lab. So it's not surprising we are seeing the same numbers as it rolls out. I'm fact, it would be suprising if it didn't match the studies.

They don't just select from the population at random from these studies. For example the study excludes those over the age of 85 or those that are immunocompormised. You can see more details on the exclusion criteria listed in seciton 5.2 of the Pfizer study: https://pfe-pfizercom-d8-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/2020-09/C4591...

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

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it saves lives and gets their economy back to normal, that was the right call. Meanwhile we’re discussing sending multi-thousand dollar checks in the US because of Covid.

The US has administered 5x the vaccines as Israel. It's not that likely that a comparable investment from the US would have accelerated vaccine availability to the same extent as happened with Israel, which was able to get substantial shipment in part because the US invested a lot in the mRNA vaccines, and in part because the EU waffled about making orders.

> The US has administered 5x the vaccines as Israel.

To put that into context: the US has a population ~36x the population of Israel.

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

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don’t know much about this issue, but from your comments it sounds like you don’t either. I’m not trying to be mean, but considering it wasn’t an automatic approval from the FDA that would suggest there’s legitimate concern to at least investigate. Be wary of Dunning-Kruger effect, especially when we’re talking about the healthcare of every person on Earth (the ideal scope of these vaccines).

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

#455

Israel feels like the only nation taking the importance and urgency of vaccination seriously. Here in Europe, articles are coming out complaining that the slow vaccination could be harming the economy which, well, fucking duh. ( https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/154626/c... ) Fast rollout. Involve pharmacies. Involve the army. Distribute widely and efficiently. Prepare for months before the vaccine…

The US also has almost no sense or urgency (maybe more than the EU, but pretty bad). Examples: - modernas main bottleneck is filling. They applied weeks ago to fill the same bottles with 15 doses instead of 10. The FDA has still not approved it. - the us prioritizes second doses over first doses. This creates a ton of cascading issues, including the fact that many places are storing half the doses for 28 days. Many p…

According to a study, the AstraZeneca one has about 22% efficacy or something. I cannot find the study right now. What did you read about it? 22 is a very low number, IMO.

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

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nothing but time and money prevents scaling. If we really really wanted to we could add a lot more doctors and nurses several years from now if they start training today. Time and money are not the only factors. Political will power and incentives are also important factors. Take World War 2 for example. Time was in short supply, but will power was not. As a result, manufacturing and training were scaled up quicker…

> Political will power and incentives are also important factors. Yes. I think people would rather take a vaccine that doesn't have 10 years of "long term effect trials" than together form the political will to pay a LOT more taxes for some war effort to scale healthcare because the vaccines are "too risky". > manufacturing and training were scaled up quicker than ever before in history. If 5 people can build a bombe…

>Basically: politics and healthcare scaling are interesting topics but quite irrelevant to the Covid pandemic response.

If politics and healthcare scaling capacity are irrelevant to the covid pandemic response, why are politicians basing their covid pandemic responses on their local healthcare's scaling capacity?

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

#457
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India. It is an enigma that why is India's response to Covid-19 gets ignored. India to date has vaccinated more people than Israel and has one of the least CFR per capita.

Now I will get downvotes from India, but let's try: It is percent of population that matters not absolute number of vaccinated people. Israel is near 70%, while India is only 0.5% [1]. CFR per capita, while looks good (113.97 deaths per million) is not actually good compared to Mongolia (0.62 deaths per million)[2]. You know, who else is doing well - Belarus (195.31 deaths per million). I don't believe Belarus number…

India has its own challenges since https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2325502/Map-shows-w...

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

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I will get downvotes from India, but let's try: It is percent of population that matters not absolute number of vaccinated people. Israel is near 70%, while India is only 0.5% [1]. CFR per capita, while looks good (113.97 deaths per million) is not actually good compared to Mongolia (0.62 deaths per million)[2]. You know, who else is doing well - Belarus (195.31 deaths per million). I don't believe Belarus number…

> It is percent of population that matters not absolute number of vaccinated people. Israel is near 70%, while India is only 0.5% [1]. Which is more commendable considering the vastness of the land itself. Israel == Delhi and surrounding reasons. Given the economic parameters of the country, it has better CFR than US, Italy, Germany and UK. Thats pretty amazing considering the health expenditure and wealth of US, Ita…

There is another elephant in the room:

* Average age in India 26.8

* Average age in countries you are comparing with is 38+

And about independent foreign houses: sources please :)

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

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don’t know much about this issue, but from your comments it sounds like you don’t either. I’m not trying to be mean, but considering it wasn’t an automatic approval from the FDA that would suggest there’s legitimate concern to at least investigate. Be wary of Dunning-Kruger effect, especially when we’re talking about the healthcare of every person on Earth (the ideal scope of these vaccines).

This is a hollow appeal to authority (the FDA is infallible) mixed with an appeal to emotion (fear of death) with no attempt to provide concrete information or to present thinking towards a conclusion.

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

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a helpful link! Your comment is surprisingly true! And utterly out of context. As of today, Israel's deaths - both for the 65-and-overs and all-ages - is nearly down to its historical normal range, per your link. Going back two weeks there was a huge peak at a z-score of 9.7; and going back eight weeks it was at a statistically anomalous low, at a z-score of -2.2. I'd be tempted to point out the period of th…

You spoke too soon and I hope you issue a correction. The last week of euroMOMO isn't nearly fully updated. All countries see an enormous drop in the last week that is then pulled back up to the actual level in the following weeks of released data. Did you notice the yellow background and the "Corrected for delay in registration". Edit: Here is an animation that shows the usual correction - https://twitter.com/jburnm…

That was an interesting graphic, so I decided to revisit the Israeli graph on EuroMOMO.

The delay in registration is for deaths that occur up until the week-end update; it is a one-week retrospective potential bump. The fall to baseline in Israel began three weeks ago, and has shown a continuous and steady slope.

You spoke too late, and I hope you issue a correction.

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