3 ms·

That is propaganda. The real data is in https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.27.21250612v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.27.2125061

That is propaganda. The real data is in https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.27.21250612v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.27.21250612v... and is 50% (not uniformly over age groups, but 50% is a good summary of it all). The Israeli government failed miserably in dealing with covid. They were successful in getting the vaccines (and thanks to the HMOs and no thanks to the government, deploy them quickly) and selling the hopium that this will solve everything and make up for the failure so far. So now they are in a very bad place. If they admit the real stats publicly before the vaccine project is done, people will stop getting vaccinated (not because 50% effective is bad - but because they’ve been misled). No one wants that. I suspect that’s why the media (ynetnews - a local USA Today equivalent, included) are all parroting the official statements without review comment or criticism. The numbers in the ynetnews are not false but they are (likely intentionally) misleading. If you used the same arguments, you’d get an IFR that’s way lower than the flu, for example. They cherry picked a completely meaningless statistic that looks good, and claimed it is the vaccine efficiency. It is not.

Ulrich2 6y ago
Please stop spreading lies. The paper is only about "The effectiveness of the first dose of BNT162 ..." 50% efficacy after the first dose is exactly the number that BioNTech reported in its Phase3 trial. So nothing unusual here. That is why the 2nd booster shot is needed to get to 95%.
- beagle3 6y ago
  See my other reply to the other copy of your comment. Please prove that you actually read the Pfizer report and not just repeating headlines before calling me a lier. I might have misread some data, but I see no indication that you are in a position to judge that.
yyyk 6y ago
You're mixing up two different datasets. The former deals with first dose effectiveness (which we've always known to be lower - that's why the regiment is two doses), the latter with the full two dose regiment. Ynet is Yediot, which is either the biggest daily newspaper or the second-biggest depending on how you count, either way it has more influence than Yisrael-Hayom. They do neglect their English site, but this particular content matches their Hebrew publication. It can't be seriously compared to USA Today (which is one of those magazine you mainly get for free, and barely has any dedicated readership).
- beagle3 6y ago
  Please look at the graphs and data, not the headlines. Nothing magical happens past day 12 from the first vaccine in the Pfizer paper, or day 18 in this paper. Seriously. Look at it. Yes, ynetnews is ynet/yediot. Their reporting of covid is exactly parroting the government with no criticism whatsoever so far. I’m not antivax, I’m provad. 50% is pretty damn good for a first attempt. But everything has become so political, I go read primary data - and it is NOT remotely close to what the headlines say.
  - yyyk 6y ago
    I'm not referring to the Pfizer research, I'm referring to the Maccabi paper. The data is explicitly for the first dose and not the second. The paper also mentions the effect starts from day 18, not beforehand - maybe you should read it again. What Maccabi did publish on the second dose, it was in a much more encouraging note. Granted, not a peer reviewed paper, that would be difficult given lack of time. Claiming Yediot is parroting the government is delusional. I won't belabor about it, since most HN readers deserve better than Israeli politics or the eternal elections.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      The main point that beagle3 makes is that the Pfizer study actually shows ~89% efficacy starting 12 days after the first dose, which improves to ~90% immediately after the 2nd dose (day 21) and ~95% 7 days later (day 28). The Maccabi study was designed with this comparison in mind: they look at efficacy in days 1-12 and 13-24 after the first dose. They are mainly interested in comparing the Pfizer results for days 13-21 (89% efficacy) with real-world data. They show that the real world data is actually showing only ~50% protection in days 13-21, compared to 89% in the Pfizer data for the same period. This is somewhat disheartening. HOWEVER, the Maccabi paper is not measuring the same thing as the Pfizer study. The Pfizer study only looked at symptomatic infections (Covid19 symptoms + positive PCR for SARS-CoV-2), while the Maccabi paper is also including asymptomatic infections. Neither study includes sufficient data to accurately compare with the other one - the Pfizer study did not do PCR tests on anyone who didn't show symptoms, so we don't know how many asymptomatic infections they had exra; and the Maccabi study didn't record symptom information, so we don't know what percentage of those infected were symptomatic. All of these numbers and facts are explicitly mentioned in the Maccabi study, it's not me reading into the data on my own.
tsimionescu 6y ago
There seems to be a major flaw in comparing the data between the two studies: the Pfizer paper is counting Covid19 cases (symptomatic cases with confirmed PCR for SARS-CoV-2), while the Maccabi paper seems to be counting SARS-CoV-2 infections overall, which would include asymptomatic cases. They even say so explicitly: > Second, our case definition was positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR test irrespective to presenting symptoms that defined COVID-19 cases in the RCT. This might explain the discrepancy in results. So, this new research is not really contradicting the Pfizer paper in any way - they are simply measuring different quantities. Still, it's nice to know that the vaccine also offers protection from infection, not just the disease.

Ulrich2 6y ago

Please stop spreading lies. The paper is only about "The effectiveness of the first dose of BNT162 ..." 50% efficacy after the first dose is exactly the number that BioNTech reported in its Phase3 trial. So nothing unusual here. That is why the 2nd booster shot is needed to get to 95%.

beagle3 6y ago
See my other reply to the other copy of your comment. Please prove that you actually read the Pfizer report and not just repeating headlines before calling me a lier. I might have misread some data, but I see no indication that you are in a position to judge that.

yyyk 6y ago

You're mixing up two different datasets. The former deals with first dose effectiveness (which we've always known to be lower - that's why the regiment is two doses), the latter with the full two dose regiment. Ynet is Yediot, which is either the biggest daily newspaper or the second-biggest depending on how you count, either way it has more influence than Yisrael-Hayom. They do neglect their English site, but this particular content matches their Hebrew publication. It can't be seriously compared to USA Today (which is one of those magazine you mainly get for free, and barely has any dedicated readership).

beagle3 6y ago
Please look at the graphs and data, not the headlines. Nothing magical happens past day 12 from the first vaccine in the Pfizer paper, or day 18 in this paper. Seriously. Look at it. Yes, ynetnews is ynet/yediot. Their reporting of covid is exactly parroting the government with no criticism whatsoever so far. I’m not antivax, I’m provad. 50% is pretty damn good for a first attempt. But everything has become so political, I go read primary data - and it is NOT remotely close to what the headlines say.
- yyyk 6y ago
  I'm not referring to the Pfizer research, I'm referring to the Maccabi paper. The data is explicitly for the first dose and not the second. The paper also mentions the effect starts from day 18, not beforehand - maybe you should read it again. What Maccabi did publish on the second dose, it was in a much more encouraging note. Granted, not a peer reviewed paper, that would be difficult given lack of time. Claiming Yediot is parroting the government is delusional. I won't belabor about it, since most HN readers deserve better than Israeli politics or the eternal elections.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    The main point that beagle3 makes is that the Pfizer study actually shows ~89% efficacy starting 12 days after the first dose, which improves to ~90% immediately after the 2nd dose (day 21) and ~95% 7 days later (day 28). The Maccabi study was designed with this comparison in mind: they look at efficacy in days 1-12 and 13-24 after the first dose. They are mainly interested in comparing the Pfizer results for days 13-21 (89% efficacy) with real-world data. They show that the real world data is actually showing only ~50% protection in days 13-21, compared to 89% in the Pfizer data for the same period. This is somewhat disheartening. HOWEVER, the Maccabi paper is not measuring the same thing as the Pfizer study. The Pfizer study only looked at symptomatic infections (Covid19 symptoms + positive PCR for SARS-CoV-2), while the Maccabi paper is also including asymptomatic infections. Neither study includes sufficient data to accurately compare with the other one - the Pfizer study did not do PCR tests on anyone who didn't show symptoms, so we don't know how many asymptomatic infections they had exra; and the Maccabi study didn't record symptom information, so we don't know what percentage of those infected were symptomatic. All of these numbers and facts are explicitly mentioned in the Maccabi study, it's not me reading into the data on my own.

tsimionescu 6y ago

There seems to be a major flaw in comparing the data between the two studies: the Pfizer paper is counting Covid19 cases (symptomatic cases with confirmed PCR for SARS-CoV-2), while the Maccabi paper seems to be counting SARS-CoV-2 infections overall, which would include asymptomatic cases. They even say so explicitly: > Second, our case definition was positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR test irrespective to presenting symptoms that defined COVID-19 cases in the RCT. This might explain the discrepancy in results. So, this new research is not really contradicting the Pfizer paper in any way - they are simply measuring different quantities. Still, it's nice to know that the vaccine also offers protection from infection, not just the disease.