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

469 points by lazycrazyowl 6y ago

baybal2 6y ago
Reassuring news! A hope for some normalcy coming with ongoing vaccinations.
- TedPetrou 6y ago
  Excess mortality for the elderly in Israel in the last 6 weeks is the highest it's been (by far) in the last 5 years. Check euroMOMO https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    Given that mortality comes usually between 3 to 8 weeks after infection it makes total sense.
    - TedPetrou 6y ago
      Does it also make sense that they are currently ranked #2 in the world in cases per million in the last week for countries with more that 1 million population? This is even after a down week in cases. Next door Lebanon is seeing cases fall at the same or faster pace and they peaked at the same time as Israel. Lebanon has yet to start vaccinating. Case fatality rate has not fallen either. You would expect a huge drop in CFR if the elderly were protected, but this hasn't been the case.
      - wittyreference 6y ago
        Israel's issue has been and continues to be a very large orthodox and ultra-orthodox community which has flouted all quarantine laws and appeals to vaccination, in a tiny dense country where said orthodox and ultra-orthodox can't be meaningfully avoided. That said, their statistics regarding the symptomatic case rate speak for themselves.
        TedPetrou 6y ago
        So you admit that total case numbers are not very good, particularly compared to a neighboring country that has not started vaccinating. Thats a good first step. Scapegoating the orthodox jews? More than 92% of 70+ in Israel have received both doses of the vaccine. Are you blaming the high number of cases on this very small segment? What happens when elderly all cause mortality is elevated substantially in 2021? This is the ultimate test for the vaccine.
      - xadhominemx 6y ago
        It’s not that hard to understand. People usually die several weeks after exposure. Only 27% of the population has received both doses; a few weeks ago that number was much smaller. In addition, the ultra orthodox community has continued to flout rules on a nearly universal basis. I’m going to go check your comment history — pretty sure you’ll have been wrong about everything related to COVID so far. Edit: shocked (not shocked) you were an early COVID vaccine skeptic, justified your belief with poor interpretation of statistics, and now that a huge amount of data have validated initial findings, you have instead decided to double down on your original gut feel!
        TedPetrou 6y ago
        "Only 27% of the population received both doses". This is a misinterpretation. It's like saying 0.5% die of covid. The vaccinations (and fatality rates) are extremely stratified by age. Over 50% of the 70+ group received at least one vaccination by the third week of January and close to 85% have received both doses as of today.
        birken 6y ago
        You said cases were high. Case counts are going to depend on how quickly the age groups with the most cases get vaccinated, which is generally the younger population. So it is going to take a while for case counts to fall. Since a COVID death generally happens 5-8 weeks after exposure, what you'd expect is that once the high risk populations have been fully vaccinated, you'd start to see the death counts dropping 5-8 weeks later, and you'd start to see the hospitalization rates dropping 2-3 weeks later. Case counts are going to drop last because the high risk populations are not driving the majority of cases. Also I don't understand what point you are trying to prove? We have detailed clinical trials about the efficacy of the vaccines. We have strong evidence to believe they work. If you are trying to interpret the data to show this isn't the case, you are probably misinterpreting it because it would be going against what we think we know with a high degree of confidence. It doesn't mean we couldn't be wrong, but it is much more likely you are just misinterpreting the data.
        adventured 6y ago
  - wittyreference 6y ago
    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 the low was the high holidays; the enormous deflection to positive slope started a week after the high holidays, and continued for three weeks. So, you know, "a bunch of people broke all quarantine for the high holidays and new year and did their level best to stay home rather than go to the doctor, and caused a giant spike, which has receded as the cases associated with that spike calmed down."
    - TedPetrou 6y ago
      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/jburnmurdoch/status/1350079943863115777 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1350079943863115777
      - zekrioca 6y ago
        Got a "This is not available to you" page.
      - wittyreference 6y ago
        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.
  - ed_balls 6y ago
    Keep it mind that without Covid there will be more death than in previous years. Baby boomers are dying.
- jb775 6y ago
  Serious question: How do we know any of this reporting is true? There's no data sources provided, no way to check follow up health (i'e. what if these people all dropped dead a week later), no way to prove the data isn't a complete fabrication, etc. Also, they make sure to use dynamic terms so we can't be sure these numbers have any valuable meaning at all (e.g. were Covid tests with drastically different cycle counts used?). Not to mention all of this reporting is praising a single vaccine producer in a billion dollar industry. I just read "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff and this whole thing is the epitome of a manipulatable situation.
throwaway4good 6y ago
94% drop in symptomatic COVID-19. So what is the drop in actual (asymptomatic and symptomatic) COVID-19 spread? And what are the chances for something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek%27s_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek%27s_disease "The first Marek's disease vaccine was introduced in 1970. The disease would cause mild paralysis, with the only identifiable lesions being in neural tissue. Mortality of chickens infected with Marek's disease was quite low. Decades after the first vaccine was introduced, current strains of Marek Virus cause lymphoma formation on throughout the chicken's body and mortality rates have reached 100% in unvaccinated chickens. The Marek's disease vaccine is a leaky vaccine, which means that only the symptoms of the disease are prevented."
lukeitup 6y ago
That is some well needed news! Just hope that Europe will speed up its vaccine distribution now.
- lnsru 6y ago
  It will not happen in Europe soon. The vaccine will be sold by manufacturers to highest bidder, that’s no surprise. And with the European ordering disaster as an adult I’ll get vaccinated best case in 2022.
  - top_sigrid 6y ago
    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, that doses for over 40 million people will be delivered in the second quarter (including some one time vaccines from Johnson&Johnson, as also with them there were contracts). Together with the 9 mio from the first, that is 49mio people (~61%) in the first half of 2021. So while it started slow (as was to expect), numbers will start rising soon. These numbers were only for Germany, I don't know exactly how this reflects for Europe, but as all orders were made Europe-wide, I guess this is similar for the whole EU, at least that was the whole point for having a Europe-wide strategy.
    - ulfw 6y ago
      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.
      - mschuster91 6y ago
        The problem was, as usual, EU countries' nationalism and wealth disparity. Macron insisted that the EU not order more doses from Germany's Biontech than from French Sanofi. So far so usual, but the worst problem were the Eastern European countries - they insisted on also keeping AstraZeneca with their 1.78€ a dose on board because well they are poor and can't afford more.
scrollaway 6y ago
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/coronavirus-slow-vaccination-campaign-could-cost-europe-close-to-90-billion-euros/ 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 is here. Follow-up campaign to convince vax holdouts. A real War Effort. There's barely any calls for volunteering here in Belgium. Hospitals and vaccination centers will complain to the government that they are understaffed but you seldom hear them urgently asking for new volunteers to assign to COVID teams and vaccination centers. We spent a ton of time debating whether the social bubble should be 2 or 3 large, whether kids should be 12 or 14 before they count for it, etc etc and those spending that time were the same people who didn't prepare for the eventuality of a vaccine, and started doing so in late December. Sorry this has veered off topic. The number of articles that can be summed up to "Vaccines work, are good, and israel is doing it right" frustrate little european me. :(
- lnsru 6y ago
  You perfectly expressed my feelings. Greetings from Germany!
  - csunbird 6y ago
    From Germany here as well, I am extremely sad how the vaccine situation was handled, 3.3 percent of population over two months is an extremely bad metric, especially when the lockdown situation is being lengthened for another month. By this rate, people won't be vaccinated by 2021. The dashboard for Germany: https://impfdashboard.de/ https://impfdashboard.de/
    - bodyfour 6y ago
      It's important to not get too discouraged with "By this rate..." The rate is increasing and should continue to do so. More production capacity is coming online week by week.
eganist 6y ago
Someone's comment raising fear about unmitigated transmission risk got flagged to death, so here's the comment I originally wrote in response to it: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.06.21251283v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.06.21251283v... The most recent un-reviewed publication looking into viral load, which is likely associated with the risk of transmission. Lay reading: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/09/pfizerbiontech-covid-vaccine-reducing-viral-load-data-israel-suggests https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/09/pfizerbionte...
- throwaway4good 6y ago
  I am just a layperson. But given the scale of these vaccination programs; I think the question of how vaccination can affect the natural evolution of the virus is one that at least should be allowed to ask.
  - ImaCake 6y ago
    I am a biologist, and not a virologist. I would suspect we are never getting rid of COVID. But vaccination could turn it into something not much worse than a cold or at least the flu. The virus will mutate and change in ways that make it more infectious, but probably not more virulent.
    - throwaway4good 6y ago
      The comment that got flag-killed linked to the wikipedia of Marek's disease. A disease that resides amongst chickens for which there exists a vaccine that prevents the disease but not the spread of the virus. And is an example of a scary story (told by antivaxxers I assume) where the introduction of a vaccine allowed the virus flourish and turn itself into a much deadlier form it otherwise would not have had.
      - ImaCake 6y ago
        Well COVID is already a near-worst case scenario for human civilization. Anything much more nasty would not leave any room for denialism (and presumably would burn itself out fast), anything much less nasty would have meant double the Flu hospitalisation burden and no lockdowns. It is hard to see an outcome where the vaccines make things worse, but I admit biology is full of surprises.
jansan 6y ago
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 aymptomatic cases or do the is this due to part of the population not keeping any rules? Does anybody have information why the numbers are sill that high?
- ekvilibrist 6y ago
  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.
  - tpm 6y ago
    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.
- throwaway4good 6y ago
  Exactly. I don't understand why it is so unpopular to ask this obvious question? 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. Given how much further Israel is, one would have expected it to stick much more out in the statistics. But it does not?
  - giantDinosaur 6y ago
    It's not that hard to think of reasons why, even as effective vaccinations go up, deaths/cases may not decline in perfect symmetry. For example, certain groups may start caring less once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated, restrictions may be eased as more people are vaccinated, certain groups may be less likely to want vaccinations so a local epidemic occurs... etc.
ancymon 6y ago
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?
- kroken 6y ago
  French competitor Sanofi is about to produce the vaccine, too. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-vaccines-sanofi-idUSP6N2JG00F https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-vaccines-...
- jansan 6y ago
  AFAIK they just started production in another factory in Marburg.
- ilkkao 6y ago
  I've been wondering this myself too. Lockdowns are so expensive that I'd assume every unconventional method to expand the production is taken into use. The situation is bad but not so bad that competitors could be forced to work together it seems. I expect that the amount of angry people in EU will peak in spring or early summer when UK, US, and Israel are mostly back to normal and we are not.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    > The situation is bad but not so bad that competitors could be forced to work together it seems. And yet this should have been the plan from the very beginning. Considering the vast numbers needed in Europe and the whole world, forcing all available production facilities to produce vaccines should have been part of the plan.
    - readittwice 6y ago
      Absolutely, however the EU's politicians are playing dumb and claim that they couldn't foresee that mass production could be a problem. The EU ordered too late and simply not enough. Now they are trying to blame everyone else for their failure.
deleted 6y ago
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kesor 6y ago
It is worth adding that the Israeli government is very aggressively pushing vaccination. So aggressively that there is a notable movement of people who oppose to get vaccinated because of the blatant violations to basic human rights in a democratic country. At the very beginning of vaccination in Israel the demand was very high, since all those waiting for the vaccine rushed and went to get it asap. Now that most of the elderly are already vaccinated and the government is placing sanctions against people who are not vaccinated (can't go shopping for clothes, can't go to sport events, can't go to the gym, can't go to cultural events, etc...) the younger generation is much less anxious to get vaccinated. This is causing the vaccine centers stand mostly idle for the recent month. The government and media in Israel have also started mentioning that they are anxiously waiting for Phizer to test the vaccines on children 12+yo and are preparing to vaccine children as soon as possible. Some speak out about vaccinating children even before the trials are complete. At the same time, there is a little known "cure" that was developed in a Tel Aviv hospital that has been tried on 30 people who were in a severe condition due to covid. 29 of them went home after two days. All it took is a little bit of ventilation several times a day.
- _0o6v 6y ago
  I can't find a single bit of evidence to support your post, so I'll go out on a limb and say stop spreading fake news.
  - enjoyyourlife 6y ago
    This article (https://apnews.com/article/israel-misinformation-coronavirus-pandemic-local-governments-museums-462b98e0ff0d7d5bf4400c84a61047b2 https://apnews.com/article/israel-misinformation-coronavirus...) provides some evidence for what is said in that comment
    - _0o6v 6y ago
      Specifically the last claim of a "cure"
- arkitaip 6y ago
mschuster91 6y ago
> He added that the data indicates the Pfizer vaccine, which was developed in partnership with Germany’s BioNTech, is even more effective two weeks or more after the second shot. That's wrong. BioNTech was the developer, Pfizer only was pulled in for manufacturing and clinical tests.
- raphaelj 6y ago
  One could argue that clinical trials are part of the development process.
  - giantDinosaur 6y ago
    They could, but it's clearly the part which can be replaced by anyone else. Without Pfizer we'd still have BionTech's vaccine, without BionTech we would not.
    - jryle70 6y ago
      We literally have Moderna for the same kind of vaccine. Pfizer partnered with BioNTech because they'd had ongoing partnership. Pfizer's manufacturing and clinical test are the reasons why the trial was approved and millions of people got vaccinated in 2020. > clearly the part which can be replaced by anyone else Not clearly. Looks at trouble with AstraZeneca's trial and manufacturing issues. This is really a worthless pissing contest but got brought up in every Pfizer/BioNTech thread.
      - giantDinosaur 6y ago
        I think it's important to distinguish the 'vaccine' as a complete package, that is, that which encompasses the distribution and regulatory framework (in the same sense that 'shipping' refers to more than just a single ship, but all the associated processes too), and the actual physical molecules that researchers pieced together. The latter wins Nobel prizes, the former wins the end of a pandemic. Both are valuable, but there's a clear difference.
EdwinLarkin 6y ago
With the number of lockdowns in Europe it feels like a spit to the face for all of the businesses and tax payers in Europe. Even throwing more money at the problem sounds better than not doing anything but I wish the EU would have forced Pfizer/Biontech and other pharma companies to just produce the vaccine en masse. This is a war time and only those that cant fight back are forced to suck it up.
- yulaow 6y ago
  Isn't Pfizer already working at full capacity and just upgraded one of its factories to double the output? At this point even states willing to pay more have their shipments delivery dates not before mid 2022
- hef19898 6y ago
  I would really like that leend that the EU didn't buy enough vaccines to die. Even before they ordered, after what I would calla media campaign, a couple of hundred million doses more, the EU had more the 4 doses per EU citizen, incl minors, on order. From all suppliers with potential vaccines in the pipeline. There was no way to tell which vaccine would be ready first. e.g. the Sanofi one, also an mRNA vaccine, will not be ready before 2022 it seems. Sanofi will produce the Pfizer / Biontech (?) one from summer onwards. Just thrwong money at the production doesn't ramp vaccine production over night. Case in point the reduced deliveries from Pfizer due to capacity increases and temporary shutdowns at their Belgian site. This is not a quantity issue, it is a distribution issue. And distribution is not the EU responsibility. Right now people are, rightly so, frustrated by the way the vaccination campaigns are running, especially in Germany it is a mess. First culprit: The manufacturers -> the media in germany sided with Biontech and declared higher availability if the EU just ordered. The result: Culprit 2 Second culprit: The EU because it didn't order earlier -> Order volumes were increased, which led to temporary shutdowns of manufacturing sites to increase capacity. The result: The EU said "sorry, we made some mistakes, but now enough is on back order to get everyone an opportuniy till summer. And by the way, vaccination campaigns are the memeber states responsibility". Step in culprit three in Germany Third culprit:The federal government. A nice one, as vaccination is a state thing over here and not a federal task. Still, allocation and call ups are going through the federal government to the EU and manufacturers. The result: They implemented a task force at the federal level. Still no increase in daily vaccinations in most German states so far. Likely forth culprit (and now we are getting closer to the truth): The state governments. Why? Because the EU was very straight forward from day one that once the doses have been delivered to the member states its responisbility ends. They also stated the logistics and distribution will be critical. And that part is so clearly lacking, from appointment management to vaccine availability of the already manufactured and delivered doses. Until now, as that point is not yet really discussed publicly, we have no real improvements. IMHO, things will get better once traditional vaccines will be available en masse. Then we can use well established supply chains for existing vaccines, e.g. the flew and other standard stuff, done by local doctors. I would also suspect, that once htis starts to work, Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna to find ways to allow the sae doctors to use mRNA vaccines safely and reliably. Until then I am afraid it will be more a blame game than anything else. And this is the real tragedy here.
lucd 6y ago
Here is some chart showing vaccination effect on hospitalization for severe forms. Very telling. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/israel-severe-hospitalizations-age?tab=chart&stackMode=relative&time=2021-01-08..latest&country=Early%20vaccinated-0~Late%20vaccinated-0~Late%20vaccinated-1&region=World https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/israel-severe-hospitaliza...
- EvgeniyZh 6y ago
  I'd expect that case fatality rate would significantly reduce after 60+ population (which is 90%+ of deaths) is vaccinated. However, even though more than 80% of 60+ got second dose already, case fatality rate is approximately the same. I don't have any good explanation for that.
  - corty 6y ago
    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.
    - EvgeniyZh 6y ago
      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.
      - corty 6y ago
        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.
nazbuck 6y ago
The ads on pornhub telling you there's girls within 3 miles of your location wanting to hook up are more true than anything Jews say. Imagine if Pfizer could invent a vaccine for Palestinian kids to prevent lead poisoning when being shot up by the IDF
nazbuck 6y ago
Stfu kike
nazbuck 6y ago
Who the fuck keeps posting obviously fake news from the evil kikes occupying Palestine?
throwaway_Ie8th 6y ago
There is a terrifying whistleblower interview from a Berlin elderly home, about the events after the vaccination. Of 31 patients who were vaccinated 8 died within 14 day, another 11 are in decline. https://2020news.de/en/whistleblower-from-berlin-nursing-home-the-terrible-dying-after-vaccination/ https://2020news.de/en/whistleblower-from-berlin-nursing-hom... Similar reports came out of Sweden and other countries, after the first report. https://2020news.de/auch-in-schweden-sterben-die-alten-menschen-nach-der-impfung/ https://2020news.de/auch-in-schweden-sterben-die-alten-mensc... There are many more reports about either Covid outbreaks right after vaccination, or many deaths in elderly vaccinees. This blog is in German language and lists many. https://corona-blog.net/tote-im-zusammenhang-mit-der-covid-impfung/ https://corona-blog.net/tote-im-zusammenhang-mit-der-covid-i...
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  This is most likely going to get flagged into oblivion, for those who come later it's a list of supposed cases where there are mass deaths after the COVID-19 vaccination. Of course 15 million people have received the vaccine in the UK, so any sudden deaths even at the level of 0.01% would be quite noticeable by now.
  - throwaway_Ie8th 6y ago
    The deaths are classified as Covid-19, so good luck figuring this out. Sometimes you don't need statistics. 8 deaths on 31, similar figures from other locations are sufficiently obvious.
- ImaCake 6y ago
  These links appear to be, to use a technical term, Bullshit. From my admittedly bad German skills, I can see that the level of reporting here is terrible, completely focused on the single issue of "vaccines are bad", and probably will lead to the deaths of a lot of people.
  - throwaway_Ie8th 6y ago
    Would you even be able to disagree with authority? Have you ever in the past?
Ulrich2 6y ago
The side effect of this amazing BioNTech/Pfizer success: Meanwhile AstraZeneca is clearly only the second choice. At least locally here in my town (EU) people line up for Biontech, but the vaccination centers that offer AstraZeneca report up to 50% no shows.
- The_rationalist 6y ago
  I wonder when sputnik V will be legalized. In France you don't get to choose the vaccine (most of the time?) you know which one you'll receive but not in advance.
  - tibu 6y ago
    In Hungary you can already get the Sputnik, government accepted it. I'm not sure whether it is good or not...
    - ssijak 6y ago
      Sputnik has pretty much same efficacy as Pfizer. Sinopharm a bit less, but also almost no side effects.
- teekert 6y ago
  Why is that? I'm in the biotech field and I hardly get any sense of one being better than the other? Is such knowledge spread via social media? (Which I avoid)
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    I think that's because the initial announced efficacy for ModeRNA/BioNTech was 95ish%, whereas for AZ it was 75%.
    - Ulrich2 6y ago
      No, because AZ does not work against the SA variant of the virus, but BT does.
zyxzevn 6y ago
Congratulations, but some sceptical notes. The spring is coming, ending the wave like last year. This can reduce the cases by a similar amount. We will have to wait till next season what will happen. The sun and season has a dramatic influence on Covid. We saw that last year. Related with vitamin-D and ultra-violet radiation. Recently some countries had changes in PCR tests. Austria had a similar reduction after not using the PCR tests. They had 95% false positives on PCR, compared to other tests. The PCR is problematic due to the usage of far too many cycles. When testing random persons, it gives 95% false positives over 35 cycles, but many countries even use 45 cycles or more. Sadly, using too many cycles is not scientific evidence for anything. Many countries also reached a natural herd immunity. Sweden is now very close to getting 60% anti-body herd immunity. Besides that we have T-cell herd-immunity of which we do not know that much. I already had covid, got my anti-bodies & T-cell-immunity and am now fully immune. Probably not applicable to Israel. Certain countries use cheap old-school medicine that prevent the disease. Like India and Ghana. Changes in medicine-use give similar changes in cases. If you don't believe it, just talk to some people that live there. They do not have a covid problem. IMHO this is the best but least profitable way to deal with the disease. Controversial: The vaccines can give strong fevers. This is a well known side-effect. These might have thinned out the weakest people. Which now did not catch covid. While I think the effect is small, it can give a temporary reduction of the cases. I hope the medicine companies will improve the vaccines, so we do not get these side-effects. The difference between these can be subtle and depends on raw data. But statistical analysis can already show some details.
- franze 6y ago
  >The spring is coming, ending the wave like last year. hight of first wave in Israel was end of march. in Israel it just really started in march. on average it was in the last weeks colder than last year.
- spuz 6y ago
  Every one of those points seems to be countered by the control group: > The comparison was against a group of the same size, with matching medical histories, who had not received the vaccine.
- deleted 6y ago
helge9210 6y ago
Being an Israeli I wouldn't trust anything coming from Israel related to COVID-19. Current government is practically crime syndicate, all the decisions related to COVID-19 are made secret for at least 30 years, agreement with Pfizer is mostly secret, case number is manipulated by gauging tests conducted and selecting appropriate population groups and vaccines are forced on population under pain of limiting access to work, grocery and flights abroad.
TedPetrou 6y ago
Israel is experiencing very high excess deaths with respect to its elderly in 2021 (see euroMOMO https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/) This is despite over 80% of its 70+ age group having both doses of the vaccine. At least half of the 70+ were fully vaccinated by January 23rd. It is the elderly all cause mortality that ultimately matters to me. If elderly are dying of other causes, then there are problems. Regardless, 2021 elderly mortality in Israel will serve as a good test for the vaccine as the vast majority of 70+ will be fully vaccinated for nearly the entire year.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  As a general rule of thumb there is at least a 2 week delay from getting COVID to death, so it's too early to say going off of a death count. Alternatively, looking up how many new cases of people vaccinated are getting COVID could be used, which doesn't have the delay. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/israel-severe-hospitalizations-age?tab=chart&stackMode=relative&time=2021-01-08..latest&country=Early%20vaccinated-0~Late%20vaccinated-0~Late%20vaccinated-1&region=World https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/israel-severe-hospitaliza...
heyuji78 6y ago
Does the data only show that those individuals do not develop symptoms, but can potentially spread the virus to non-vaccinated individuals? Or does the 94% drop in symptomatic infections also means that those individuals can no longer spread the virus to others?
code-scope 6y ago
Anyone know if the similar mRNA process can be used to create vaccine for normal FLU virus.
- macintux 6y ago
  I don’t recall where, but there’s some optimism we can create a universal vaccine for all corona viruses. Maybe we can finally cure the common cold.
- weaksauce 6y ago
  I believe that's what they were working towards. I have said it before but I believe that this might be the start of something paradigm shift big like antibiotics were. look at the plague being treatable by antibiotics but before that it was a huge death sentence. time will tell.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The same process can be used to target vaccines for other protein structures. So there is still the work to find a suitable target on the flu virus. Much of the science on the SARS 2 virus benefitted from the work that had been done on SARS.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    > Much of the science on the SARS 2 virus benefitted from the work that had been done on SARS. Can you provide more details on that? All I know is that SARS-1 was in 2002/2003, and the US CDC/NIH refused to pay for SARS-1 grants after it died out. Oh and the CCP didn't notify anybody about SARS-1 for at least 3 months, same as SARS-2.
bronzeage 6y ago
Nothing like an election coming up in few months to force the leader to speed up things. I bet if Bibi didn't care about elections and staying in power whilst awaiting awaiting trial, we wouldn't have rushed this vaccination campaign as fast as we did. The vaccine itself wouldn't have been available if Trump wasn't acting out of his own deadline of elections, and sadly, Pfizer decided to backstab him and publish results literally one week too late. However with the scale of fraud revealed I hardly think it mattered. Most important feature of elections is holding these leaders accountable. It doesn't happen when they have millions of easily fabricated mail votes backing them up, and just for saying that I bet the US mob will downvote me to oblivion but that's the truth. Leaders that are scrutinized and criticized properly by the media will always act more in the people's favor then those handled gently and favorably by the media.
- DanHulton 6y ago
  Despite many attempts, exactly zero accusations of voter fraud have been proven, or even considered vaguely probable.
dzhiurgis 6y ago
Is there Any data yet if people are contagiuos when vaccinated and infected?
gregwebs 6y ago
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://dalewharrison.substack.com/p/israeli-vaccination-data https://dalewharrison.substack.com/p/israeli-vaccination-dat... If anyone has a link to the actual study, please post it! It is really annoying to see news articles posted about studies that don't link to them or even provide any basic information to find the study.
- chkaloon 6y ago
  Of course it's also possible the outcome in the original clinical study underestimated the efficacy.
- mchusma 6y ago
  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.
  - gregwebs 6y ago
    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/C4591001_Clinical_Protocol.pdf https://pfe-pfizercom-d8-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/2020-09/C4591...

469 points by lazycrazyowl 6y ago

baybal2 6y ago

Reassuring news! A hope for some normalcy coming with ongoing vaccinations.

TedPetrou 6y ago
Excess mortality for the elderly in Israel in the last 6 weeks is the highest it's been (by far) in the last 5 years. Check euroMOMO https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
- Daishiman 6y ago
  Given that mortality comes usually between 3 to 8 weeks after infection it makes total sense.
  - TedPetrou 6y ago
    Does it also make sense that they are currently ranked #2 in the world in cases per million in the last week for countries with more that 1 million population? This is even after a down week in cases. Next door Lebanon is seeing cases fall at the same or faster pace and they peaked at the same time as Israel. Lebanon has yet to start vaccinating. Case fatality rate has not fallen either. You would expect a huge drop in CFR if the elderly were protected, but this hasn't been the case.
    - wittyreference 6y ago
      Israel's issue has been and continues to be a very large orthodox and ultra-orthodox community which has flouted all quarantine laws and appeals to vaccination, in a tiny dense country where said orthodox and ultra-orthodox can't be meaningfully avoided. That said, their statistics regarding the symptomatic case rate speak for themselves.
      - TedPetrou 6y ago
        So you admit that total case numbers are not very good, particularly compared to a neighboring country that has not started vaccinating. Thats a good first step. Scapegoating the orthodox jews? More than 92% of 70+ in Israel have received both doses of the vaccine. Are you blaming the high number of cases on this very small segment? What happens when elderly all cause mortality is elevated substantially in 2021? This is the ultimate test for the vaccine.
    - xadhominemx 6y ago
      It’s not that hard to understand. People usually die several weeks after exposure. Only 27% of the population has received both doses; a few weeks ago that number was much smaller. In addition, the ultra orthodox community has continued to flout rules on a nearly universal basis. I’m going to go check your comment history — pretty sure you’ll have been wrong about everything related to COVID so far. Edit: shocked (not shocked) you were an early COVID vaccine skeptic, justified your belief with poor interpretation of statistics, and now that a huge amount of data have validated initial findings, you have instead decided to double down on your original gut feel!
      - TedPetrou 6y ago
        "Only 27% of the population received both doses". This is a misinterpretation. It's like saying 0.5% die of covid. The vaccinations (and fatality rates) are extremely stratified by age. Over 50% of the 70+ group received at least one vaccination by the third week of January and close to 85% have received both doses as of today.
        birken 6y ago
        You said cases were high. Case counts are going to depend on how quickly the age groups with the most cases get vaccinated, which is generally the younger population. So it is going to take a while for case counts to fall. Since a COVID death generally happens 5-8 weeks after exposure, what you'd expect is that once the high risk populations have been fully vaccinated, you'd start to see the death counts dropping 5-8 weeks later, and you'd start to see the hospitalization rates dropping 2-3 weeks later. Case counts are going to drop last because the high risk populations are not driving the majority of cases. Also I don't understand what point you are trying to prove? We have detailed clinical trials about the efficacy of the vaccines. We have strong evidence to believe they work. If you are trying to interpret the data to show this isn't the case, you are probably misinterpreting it because it would be going against what we think we know with a high degree of confidence. It doesn't mean we couldn't be wrong, but it is much more likely you are just misinterpreting the data.
      - adventured 6y ago
- wittyreference 6y ago
  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 the low was the high holidays; the enormous deflection to positive slope started a week after the high holidays, and continued for three weeks. So, you know, "a bunch of people broke all quarantine for the high holidays and new year and did their level best to stay home rather than go to the doctor, and caused a giant spike, which has receded as the cases associated with that spike calmed down."
  - TedPetrou 6y ago
    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/jburnmurdoch/status/1350079943863115777 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1350079943863115777
    - zekrioca 6y ago
      Got a "This is not available to you" page.
    - wittyreference 6y ago
      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.
- ed_balls 6y ago
  Keep it mind that without Covid there will be more death than in previous years. Baby boomers are dying.
jb775 6y ago
Serious question: How do we know any of this reporting is true? There's no data sources provided, no way to check follow up health (i'e. what if these people all dropped dead a week later), no way to prove the data isn't a complete fabrication, etc. Also, they make sure to use dynamic terms so we can't be sure these numbers have any valuable meaning at all (e.g. were Covid tests with drastically different cycle counts used?). Not to mention all of this reporting is praising a single vaccine producer in a billion dollar industry. I just read "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff and this whole thing is the epitome of a manipulatable situation.

throwaway4good 6y ago

94% drop in symptomatic COVID-19. So what is the drop in actual (asymptomatic and symptomatic) COVID-19 spread? And what are the chances for something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek%27s_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek%27s_disease "The first Marek's disease vaccine was introduced in 1970. The disease would cause mild paralysis, with the only identifiable lesions being in neural tissue. Mortality of chickens infected with Marek's disease was quite low. Decades after the first vaccine was introduced, current strains of Marek Virus cause lymphoma formation on throughout the chicken's body and mortality rates have reached 100% in unvaccinated chickens. The Marek's disease vaccine is a leaky vaccine, which means that only the symptoms of the disease are prevented."

lukeitup 6y ago

That is some well needed news! Just hope that Europe will speed up its vaccine distribution now.

lnsru 6y ago
It will not happen in Europe soon. The vaccine will be sold by manufacturers to highest bidder, that’s no surprise. And with the European ordering disaster as an adult I’ll get vaccinated best case in 2022.
- top_sigrid 6y ago
  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, that doses for over 40 million people will be delivered in the second quarter (including some one time vaccines from Johnson&Johnson, as also with them there were contracts). Together with the 9 mio from the first, that is 49mio people (~61%) in the first half of 2021. So while it started slow (as was to expect), numbers will start rising soon. These numbers were only for Germany, I don't know exactly how this reflects for Europe, but as all orders were made Europe-wide, I guess this is similar for the whole EU, at least that was the whole point for having a Europe-wide strategy.
  - ulfw 6y ago
    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.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      The problem was, as usual, EU countries' nationalism and wealth disparity. Macron insisted that the EU not order more doses from Germany's Biontech than from French Sanofi. So far so usual, but the worst problem were the Eastern European countries - they insisted on also keeping AstraZeneca with their 1.78€ a dose on board because well they are poor and can't afford more.

scrollaway 6y ago

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/coronavirus-slow-vaccination-campaign-could-cost-europe-close-to-90-billion-euros/ 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 is here. Follow-up campaign to convince vax holdouts. A real War Effort. There's barely any calls for volunteering here in Belgium. Hospitals and vaccination centers will complain to the government that they are understaffed but you seldom hear them urgently asking for new volunteers to assign to COVID teams and vaccination centers. We spent a ton of time debating whether the social bubble should be 2 or 3 large, whether kids should be 12 or 14 before they count for it, etc etc and those spending that time were the same people who didn't prepare for the eventuality of a vaccine, and started doing so in late December. Sorry this has veered off topic. The number of articles that can be summed up to "Vaccines work, are good, and israel is doing it right" frustrate little european me. :(

lnsru 6y ago
You perfectly expressed my feelings. Greetings from Germany!
- csunbird 6y ago
  From Germany here as well, I am extremely sad how the vaccine situation was handled, 3.3 percent of population over two months is an extremely bad metric, especially when the lockdown situation is being lengthened for another month. By this rate, people won't be vaccinated by 2021. The dashboard for Germany: https://impfdashboard.de/ https://impfdashboard.de/
  - bodyfour 6y ago
    It's important to not get too discouraged with "By this rate..." The rate is increasing and should continue to do so. More production capacity is coming online week by week.

eganist 6y ago

Someone's comment raising fear about unmitigated transmission risk got flagged to death, so here's the comment I originally wrote in response to it: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.06.21251283v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.06.21251283v... The most recent un-reviewed publication looking into viral load, which is likely associated with the risk of transmission. Lay reading: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/09/pfizerbiontech-covid-vaccine-reducing-viral-load-data-israel-suggests https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/09/pfizerbionte...

throwaway4good 6y ago
I am just a layperson. But given the scale of these vaccination programs; I think the question of how vaccination can affect the natural evolution of the virus is one that at least should be allowed to ask.
- ImaCake 6y ago
  I am a biologist, and not a virologist. I would suspect we are never getting rid of COVID. But vaccination could turn it into something not much worse than a cold or at least the flu. The virus will mutate and change in ways that make it more infectious, but probably not more virulent.
  - throwaway4good 6y ago
    The comment that got flag-killed linked to the wikipedia of Marek's disease. A disease that resides amongst chickens for which there exists a vaccine that prevents the disease but not the spread of the virus. And is an example of a scary story (told by antivaxxers I assume) where the introduction of a vaccine allowed the virus flourish and turn itself into a much deadlier form it otherwise would not have had.
    - ImaCake 6y ago
      Well COVID is already a near-worst case scenario for human civilization. Anything much more nasty would not leave any room for denialism (and presumably would burn itself out fast), anything much less nasty would have meant double the Flu hospitalisation burden and no lockdowns. It is hard to see an outcome where the vaccines make things worse, but I admit biology is full of surprises.

jansan 6y ago

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 aymptomatic cases or do the is this due to part of the population not keeping any rules? Does anybody have information why the numbers are sill that high?

ekvilibrist 6y ago
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.
- tpm 6y ago
  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.
throwaway4good 6y ago
Exactly. I don't understand why it is so unpopular to ask this obvious question? 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. Given how much further Israel is, one would have expected it to stick much more out in the statistics. But it does not?
- giantDinosaur 6y ago
  It's not that hard to think of reasons why, even as effective vaccinations go up, deaths/cases may not decline in perfect symmetry. For example, certain groups may start caring less once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated, restrictions may be eased as more people are vaccinated, certain groups may be less likely to want vaccinations so a local epidemic occurs... etc.

ancymon 6y ago

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?

kroken 6y ago
French competitor Sanofi is about to produce the vaccine, too. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-vaccines-sanofi-idUSP6N2JG00F https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-vaccines-...
jansan 6y ago
AFAIK they just started production in another factory in Marburg.
ilkkao 6y ago
I've been wondering this myself too. Lockdowns are so expensive that I'd assume every unconventional method to expand the production is taken into use. The situation is bad but not so bad that competitors could be forced to work together it seems. I expect that the amount of angry people in EU will peak in spring or early summer when UK, US, and Israel are mostly back to normal and we are not.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  > The situation is bad but not so bad that competitors could be forced to work together it seems. And yet this should have been the plan from the very beginning. Considering the vast numbers needed in Europe and the whole world, forcing all available production facilities to produce vaccines should have been part of the plan.
  - readittwice 6y ago
    Absolutely, however the EU's politicians are playing dumb and claim that they couldn't foresee that mass production could be a problem. The EU ordered too late and simply not enough. Now they are trying to blame everyone else for their failure.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kesor 6y ago

It is worth adding that the Israeli government is very aggressively pushing vaccination. So aggressively that there is a notable movement of people who oppose to get vaccinated because of the blatant violations to basic human rights in a democratic country. At the very beginning of vaccination in Israel the demand was very high, since all those waiting for the vaccine rushed and went to get it asap. Now that most of the elderly are already vaccinated and the government is placing sanctions against people who are not vaccinated (can't go shopping for clothes, can't go to sport events, can't go to the gym, can't go to cultural events, etc...) the younger generation is much less anxious to get vaccinated. This is causing the vaccine centers stand mostly idle for the recent month. The government and media in Israel have also started mentioning that they are anxiously waiting for Phizer to test the vaccines on children 12+yo and are preparing to vaccine children as soon as possible. Some speak out about vaccinating children even before the trials are complete. At the same time, there is a little known "cure" that was developed in a Tel Aviv hospital that has been tried on 30 people who were in a severe condition due to covid. 29 of them went home after two days. All it took is a little bit of ventilation several times a day.

_0o6v 6y ago
I can't find a single bit of evidence to support your post, so I'll go out on a limb and say stop spreading fake news.
- enjoyyourlife 6y ago
  This article (https://apnews.com/article/israel-misinformation-coronavirus-pandemic-local-governments-museums-462b98e0ff0d7d5bf4400c84a61047b2 https://apnews.com/article/israel-misinformation-coronavirus...) provides some evidence for what is said in that comment
  - _0o6v 6y ago
    Specifically the last claim of a "cure"
arkitaip 6y ago

mschuster91 6y ago

> He added that the data indicates the Pfizer vaccine, which was developed in partnership with Germany’s BioNTech, is even more effective two weeks or more after the second shot. That's wrong. BioNTech was the developer, Pfizer only was pulled in for manufacturing and clinical tests.

raphaelj 6y ago
One could argue that clinical trials are part of the development process.
- giantDinosaur 6y ago
  They could, but it's clearly the part which can be replaced by anyone else. Without Pfizer we'd still have BionTech's vaccine, without BionTech we would not.
  - jryle70 6y ago
    We literally have Moderna for the same kind of vaccine. Pfizer partnered with BioNTech because they'd had ongoing partnership. Pfizer's manufacturing and clinical test are the reasons why the trial was approved and millions of people got vaccinated in 2020. > clearly the part which can be replaced by anyone else Not clearly. Looks at trouble with AstraZeneca's trial and manufacturing issues. This is really a worthless pissing contest but got brought up in every Pfizer/BioNTech thread.
    - giantDinosaur 6y ago
      I think it's important to distinguish the 'vaccine' as a complete package, that is, that which encompasses the distribution and regulatory framework (in the same sense that 'shipping' refers to more than just a single ship, but all the associated processes too), and the actual physical molecules that researchers pieced together. The latter wins Nobel prizes, the former wins the end of a pandemic. Both are valuable, but there's a clear difference.

EdwinLarkin 6y ago

With the number of lockdowns in Europe it feels like a spit to the face for all of the businesses and tax payers in Europe. Even throwing more money at the problem sounds better than not doing anything but I wish the EU would have forced Pfizer/Biontech and other pharma companies to just produce the vaccine en masse. This is a war time and only those that cant fight back are forced to suck it up.

yulaow 6y ago
Isn't Pfizer already working at full capacity and just upgraded one of its factories to double the output? At this point even states willing to pay more have their shipments delivery dates not before mid 2022
hef19898 6y ago
I would really like that leend that the EU didn't buy enough vaccines to die. Even before they ordered, after what I would calla media campaign, a couple of hundred million doses more, the EU had more the 4 doses per EU citizen, incl minors, on order. From all suppliers with potential vaccines in the pipeline. There was no way to tell which vaccine would be ready first. e.g. the Sanofi one, also an mRNA vaccine, will not be ready before 2022 it seems. Sanofi will produce the Pfizer / Biontech (?) one from summer onwards. Just thrwong money at the production doesn't ramp vaccine production over night. Case in point the reduced deliveries from Pfizer due to capacity increases and temporary shutdowns at their Belgian site. This is not a quantity issue, it is a distribution issue. And distribution is not the EU responsibility. Right now people are, rightly so, frustrated by the way the vaccination campaigns are running, especially in Germany it is a mess. First culprit: The manufacturers -> the media in germany sided with Biontech and declared higher availability if the EU just ordered. The result: Culprit 2 Second culprit: The EU because it didn't order earlier -> Order volumes were increased, which led to temporary shutdowns of manufacturing sites to increase capacity. The result: The EU said "sorry, we made some mistakes, but now enough is on back order to get everyone an opportuniy till summer. And by the way, vaccination campaigns are the memeber states responsibility". Step in culprit three in Germany Third culprit:The federal government. A nice one, as vaccination is a state thing over here and not a federal task. Still, allocation and call ups are going through the federal government to the EU and manufacturers. The result: They implemented a task force at the federal level. Still no increase in daily vaccinations in most German states so far. Likely forth culprit (and now we are getting closer to the truth): The state governments. Why? Because the EU was very straight forward from day one that once the doses have been delivered to the member states its responisbility ends. They also stated the logistics and distribution will be critical. And that part is so clearly lacking, from appointment management to vaccine availability of the already manufactured and delivered doses. Until now, as that point is not yet really discussed publicly, we have no real improvements. IMHO, things will get better once traditional vaccines will be available en masse. Then we can use well established supply chains for existing vaccines, e.g. the flew and other standard stuff, done by local doctors. I would also suspect, that once htis starts to work, Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna to find ways to allow the sae doctors to use mRNA vaccines safely and reliably. Until then I am afraid it will be more a blame game than anything else. And this is the real tragedy here.

lucd 6y ago

Here is some chart showing vaccination effect on hospitalization for severe forms. Very telling. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/israel-severe-hospitalizations-age?tab=chart&stackMode=relative&time=2021-01-08..latest&country=Early%20vaccinated-0~Late%20vaccinated-0~Late%20vaccinated-1&region=World https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/israel-severe-hospitaliza...

EvgeniyZh 6y ago
I'd expect that case fatality rate would significantly reduce after 60+ population (which is 90%+ of deaths) is vaccinated. However, even though more than 80% of 60+ got second dose already, case fatality rate is approximately the same. I don't have any good explanation for that.
- corty 6y ago
  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.
  - EvgeniyZh 6y ago
    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.
    - corty 6y ago
      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.

nazbuck 6y ago

The ads on pornhub telling you there's girls within 3 miles of your location wanting to hook up are more true than anything Jews say. Imagine if Pfizer could invent a vaccine for Palestinian kids to prevent lead poisoning when being shot up by the IDF

nazbuck 6y ago

Stfu kike

nazbuck 6y ago

Who the fuck keeps posting obviously fake news from the evil kikes occupying Palestine?

throwaway_Ie8th 6y ago

There is a terrifying whistleblower interview from a Berlin elderly home, about the events after the vaccination. Of 31 patients who were vaccinated 8 died within 14 day, another 11 are in decline. https://2020news.de/en/whistleblower-from-berlin-nursing-home-the-terrible-dying-after-vaccination/ https://2020news.de/en/whistleblower-from-berlin-nursing-hom... Similar reports came out of Sweden and other countries, after the first report. https://2020news.de/auch-in-schweden-sterben-die-alten-menschen-nach-der-impfung/ https://2020news.de/auch-in-schweden-sterben-die-alten-mensc... There are many more reports about either Covid outbreaks right after vaccination, or many deaths in elderly vaccinees. This blog is in German language and lists many. https://corona-blog.net/tote-im-zusammenhang-mit-der-covid-impfung/ https://corona-blog.net/tote-im-zusammenhang-mit-der-covid-i...

VBprogrammer 6y ago
This is most likely going to get flagged into oblivion, for those who come later it's a list of supposed cases where there are mass deaths after the COVID-19 vaccination. Of course 15 million people have received the vaccine in the UK, so any sudden deaths even at the level of 0.01% would be quite noticeable by now.
- throwaway_Ie8th 6y ago
  The deaths are classified as Covid-19, so good luck figuring this out. Sometimes you don't need statistics. 8 deaths on 31, similar figures from other locations are sufficiently obvious.
ImaCake 6y ago
These links appear to be, to use a technical term, Bullshit. From my admittedly bad German skills, I can see that the level of reporting here is terrible, completely focused on the single issue of "vaccines are bad", and probably will lead to the deaths of a lot of people.
- throwaway_Ie8th 6y ago
  Would you even be able to disagree with authority? Have you ever in the past?

Ulrich2 6y ago

The side effect of this amazing BioNTech/Pfizer success: Meanwhile AstraZeneca is clearly only the second choice. At least locally here in my town (EU) people line up for Biontech, but the vaccination centers that offer AstraZeneca report up to 50% no shows.

The_rationalist 6y ago
I wonder when sputnik V will be legalized. In France you don't get to choose the vaccine (most of the time?) you know which one you'll receive but not in advance.
- tibu 6y ago
  In Hungary you can already get the Sputnik, government accepted it. I'm not sure whether it is good or not...
  - ssijak 6y ago
    Sputnik has pretty much same efficacy as Pfizer. Sinopharm a bit less, but also almost no side effects.
teekert 6y ago
Why is that? I'm in the biotech field and I hardly get any sense of one being better than the other? Is such knowledge spread via social media? (Which I avoid)
- StavrosK 6y ago
  I think that's because the initial announced efficacy for ModeRNA/BioNTech was 95ish%, whereas for AZ it was 75%.
  - Ulrich2 6y ago
    No, because AZ does not work against the SA variant of the virus, but BT does.

zyxzevn 6y ago

Congratulations, but some sceptical notes. The spring is coming, ending the wave like last year. This can reduce the cases by a similar amount. We will have to wait till next season what will happen. The sun and season has a dramatic influence on Covid. We saw that last year. Related with vitamin-D and ultra-violet radiation. Recently some countries had changes in PCR tests. Austria had a similar reduction after not using the PCR tests. They had 95% false positives on PCR, compared to other tests. The PCR is problematic due to the usage of far too many cycles. When testing random persons, it gives 95% false positives over 35 cycles, but many countries even use 45 cycles or more. Sadly, using too many cycles is not scientific evidence for anything. Many countries also reached a natural herd immunity. Sweden is now very close to getting 60% anti-body herd immunity. Besides that we have T-cell herd-immunity of which we do not know that much. I already had covid, got my anti-bodies & T-cell-immunity and am now fully immune. Probably not applicable to Israel. Certain countries use cheap old-school medicine that prevent the disease. Like India and Ghana. Changes in medicine-use give similar changes in cases. If you don't believe it, just talk to some people that live there. They do not have a covid problem. IMHO this is the best but least profitable way to deal with the disease. Controversial: The vaccines can give strong fevers. This is a well known side-effect. These might have thinned out the weakest people. Which now did not catch covid. While I think the effect is small, it can give a temporary reduction of the cases. I hope the medicine companies will improve the vaccines, so we do not get these side-effects. The difference between these can be subtle and depends on raw data. But statistical analysis can already show some details.

franze 6y ago
>The spring is coming, ending the wave like last year. hight of first wave in Israel was end of march. in Israel it just really started in march. on average it was in the last weeks colder than last year.
spuz 6y ago
Every one of those points seems to be countered by the control group: > The comparison was against a group of the same size, with matching medical histories, who had not received the vaccine.
deleted 6y ago

helge9210 6y ago

Being an Israeli I wouldn't trust anything coming from Israel related to COVID-19. Current government is practically crime syndicate, all the decisions related to COVID-19 are made secret for at least 30 years, agreement with Pfizer is mostly secret, case number is manipulated by gauging tests conducted and selecting appropriate population groups and vaccines are forced on population under pain of limiting access to work, grocery and flights abroad.

TedPetrou 6y ago

Israel is experiencing very high excess deaths with respect to its elderly in 2021 (see euroMOMO https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/) This is despite over 80% of its 70+ age group having both doses of the vaccine. At least half of the 70+ were fully vaccinated by January 23rd. It is the elderly all cause mortality that ultimately matters to me. If elderly are dying of other causes, then there are problems. Regardless, 2021 elderly mortality in Israel will serve as a good test for the vaccine as the vast majority of 70+ will be fully vaccinated for nearly the entire year.

proverbialbunny 6y ago
As a general rule of thumb there is at least a 2 week delay from getting COVID to death, so it's too early to say going off of a death count. Alternatively, looking up how many new cases of people vaccinated are getting COVID could be used, which doesn't have the delay. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/israel-severe-hospitalizations-age?tab=chart&stackMode=relative&time=2021-01-08..latest&country=Early%20vaccinated-0~Late%20vaccinated-0~Late%20vaccinated-1&region=World https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/israel-severe-hospitaliza...

heyuji78 6y ago

Does the data only show that those individuals do not develop symptoms, but can potentially spread the virus to non-vaccinated individuals? Or does the 94% drop in symptomatic infections also means that those individuals can no longer spread the virus to others?

code-scope 6y ago

Anyone know if the similar mRNA process can be used to create vaccine for normal FLU virus.

macintux 6y ago
I don’t recall where, but there’s some optimism we can create a universal vaccine for all corona viruses. Maybe we can finally cure the common cold.
weaksauce 6y ago
I believe that's what they were working towards. I have said it before but I believe that this might be the start of something paradigm shift big like antibiotics were. look at the plague being treatable by antibiotics but before that it was a huge death sentence. time will tell.
maxerickson 6y ago
The same process can be used to target vaccines for other protein structures. So there is still the work to find a suitable target on the flu virus. Much of the science on the SARS 2 virus benefitted from the work that had been done on SARS.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > Much of the science on the SARS 2 virus benefitted from the work that had been done on SARS. Can you provide more details on that? All I know is that SARS-1 was in 2002/2003, and the US CDC/NIH refused to pay for SARS-1 grants after it died out. Oh and the CCP didn't notify anybody about SARS-1 for at least 3 months, same as SARS-2.

bronzeage 6y ago

Nothing like an election coming up in few months to force the leader to speed up things. I bet if Bibi didn't care about elections and staying in power whilst awaiting awaiting trial, we wouldn't have rushed this vaccination campaign as fast as we did. The vaccine itself wouldn't have been available if Trump wasn't acting out of his own deadline of elections, and sadly, Pfizer decided to backstab him and publish results literally one week too late. However with the scale of fraud revealed I hardly think it mattered. Most important feature of elections is holding these leaders accountable. It doesn't happen when they have millions of easily fabricated mail votes backing them up, and just for saying that I bet the US mob will downvote me to oblivion but that's the truth. Leaders that are scrutinized and criticized properly by the media will always act more in the people's favor then those handled gently and favorably by the media.

DanHulton 6y ago
Despite many attempts, exactly zero accusations of voter fraud have been proven, or even considered vaguely probable.

dzhiurgis 6y ago

Is there Any data yet if people are contagiuos when vaccinated and infected?

gregwebs 6y ago

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://dalewharrison.substack.com/p/israeli-vaccination-data https://dalewharrison.substack.com/p/israeli-vaccination-dat... If anyone has a link to the actual study, please post it! It is really annoying to see news articles posted about studies that don't link to them or even provide any basic information to find the study.

chkaloon 6y ago
Of course it's also possible the outcome in the original clinical study underestimated the efficacy.
mchusma 6y ago
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.
- gregwebs 6y ago
  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/C4591001_Clinical_Protocol.pdf https://pfe-pfizercom-d8-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/2020-09/C4591...