9 ms·

Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, Israel Study Suggests

41 points by stevetodd 5y ago

joelbondurant 5y ago
Diaper Face Alert! Diaper Face Alert! This is a paid advertisement of the Diaper Face Alert System.
andybar007 5y ago
Does this take into account that folks in Israel received their shots a while ago?
j_walter 5y ago
39% effective against infection, but the big sticking point is that it "Largely prevents severe illness"...ie keeping people out of the hospital. That is the crucial need right now with the delta spread.
- jefft255 5y ago
  My understanding is that it's pretty clear that vaccine do not do a good job at preventing infection (i.e. testing positive and/or having cold-like symptoms), Delta or not. I don't think they were ever advertised as such.
  - selykg 5y ago
    > I don't think they were ever advertised as such. Correct based on my understanding. But sadly I see people quoting all the time (on social media) that it prevents infection. So there's probably a fair bit of misconception out there
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    The mRNA vaccines were very good at preventing any infection, between 80% and 95% effective depending on variant and study. J&J was between 65 and 80% depending on the variant and study. All of them have been excellent at preventing hospitalization and death. And they definitely were advertised as helping to prevent the spread. That's the whole "herd immunity" thing. After all, one goal is to prevent the epidemic from hitting the unvaccinated.
    - rmdashrfstar 5y ago
      Vaccines does not _prevent_ infection. Vaccines prevent _diseases_ that can be dangerous, or even deadly. Vaccines greatly reduce the _risk_ of infection by working with the body’s natural defenses to safely develop immunity to disease.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        You're speaking nonsense. If you mean the vaccine doesn't prevent a virus particle from going into your body, you are correct. They aid the immune system in fighting the virus once it's inside. "Infection" is usually used when some boundary of viral load is crossed, a boundary almost impossible to reach through any means other than internal incubation. Hence, vaccines prevent infection.
  - JshWright 5y ago
    That depends on what you mean by "good job". It's certainly better at preventing sever illness than it is at preventing infection altogether, but it's still quite good at that (better than the typical flu vaccine, for instance).
  - j_walter 5y ago
    Politicians certainly didn't deliver a great message about it though...when they are the ones that are giving out 99% of the information about the vaccine (since I don't think the drug companies can advertise a non-approved drug). Many vaccines are meant to prevent infection, but this type is meant to mostly reduce the chance of severe infection by training your body to see the virus sooner and know how to attack it with less "training".
    - dmwallin 5y ago
      >>> training your body to see the virus sooner and know how to attack it with less "training" This is literally how every vaccine ever made works.
      - j_walter 5y ago
        Yes, but some are better at never getting infected in the first place, like chicken pox, hepatitis or measles.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - tmaly 5y ago
    it is my understanding that mRNA technology makes it easier to create vaccines. Why can we just do a version 2 that does work better against delta?
    - bamboozled 5y ago
      Probably because this version is doing well enough?
- 71a54xd 5y ago
  This is the media "grift" I absolutely can't believe. The vaccine IS preventing people from dying and it's largely known that the vaccine doesn't prevent infection or spread. That said, GET THE VACCINE, I do not intend for this to sound like I'm condoning any kind of anti-vax narrative! Political fluff is expected, but keeping millions of people afraid and irate about information that deeply pertains to both their physical and mental health for what gain?
  - kindatrue 5y ago
    >for what gain Those clicks!
    - 71a54xd 5y ago
      Obviously! But at what point will educated people (regardless of their political views) realize that playing fast and loose with this kind of media is damaging to everyone and their wellbeing?
- HWR_14 5y ago
  The 39% is against getting an infection, and I believe that includes the ability to transmit the infection on. It definitely is crucial that Re (R0 modified by measures like vaccines and masks) be kept below 1 if at all possible. The preventing severe illness is still holding pretty firm, but not as strong as against other variants. Still a very good chance. And preventing hospitalizations is even stronger.
  - j_walter 5y ago
    I haven't seen any good information on transmission. My gut feeling is that less symptoms == less transmissibility, but I have no data to back that up. One study has put the delta R0 around the same as Measles...which is 3x original COVID, but still less than Chicken Pox.
    - breadzeppelin__ 5y ago
      > less symptoms == less transmissibility doesn't really hold up when asymptomatic spread (no symptoms at all) has been one of the main concerns for the entire pandemic
      - j_walter 5y ago
        Sure, but everything also said its spread through the air...no coughing == less droplets. The spread concern would be if people aren't taking the same precautions because they aren't showing symptoms, but if still wearing masks or social distancing then the transmission should be less. That being said most people aren't taking precautions any more because of this...I've seen people directly exposed for up to 2 days to someone with COVID w/ symptoms who then gets an immediate negative test and goes on with their life and not wearing masks in public/work. No amount of yelling or shaming does any good when people are oblivious to their own self destructive behavior.
      - wbsss4412 5y ago
        It’s important to distinguish between asymptomatic infection and presymptomatic infection. The biggest problem with COVID-19 compared to previous forms of SARS viruses is its ability to spread before the onset of symptoms, which is different from someone displaying no symptoms at all from infection. I’m not completely sure how infectious an asymptomatic infection is, but i just wanted to note a lot of the concern has actually been about presymptomatic infection.
- senectus1 5y ago
  39% against infection is bloody good. I'll take that (actually i already have)
hourislate 5y ago
Need to come up with a Nasal Spray version. The mucosal immune system represents the body’s first line of defense and makes up most of the immune system and should be more effective than an intramuscular shot. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-sniffing-alternative-scientists-nasal-mist.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-sniffing-alternative-... Researchers even observed the nasal vaccine to be more effective than if administered into the muscles, Damron said. He explained that a high amount of IgA antibody gets released into the nose and lungs, forging a wall of protection at the site where viruses begin to replicate.
- superkuh 5y ago
  Yes. No intramuscular vaccination for a respiratory virus is going to be effective at preventing infection of the surface, mucosal, tissues in the upper respiratory tract. The IgG antibodies in the body serum do seep into the lower lungs though and prevent serious diseases there and in the body proper. To provide sterilizing immunity to the upper respiratory mucosa we'll need an intranasal booster after the intramuscular to recruit resident B and T cells to the upper respiratory mucosa. There the B cells will make IgA antibodies for a much longer time than IgG antibodies can seep in at any useful level. Additionally the resident T cells will kill off any cells that do get infected. This is a nuanced issue. We need to be clear that there is a difference between infection of the body organs and infection of the surface mucosal tissues. ref: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6553/397 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6553/397 ref: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evoluti https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evoluti... page 5, #8. "Whilst we feel that current vaccines are excellent for reducing the risk of hospital admission and disease, we propose that research be focused on vaccines that also induce high and durable levels of mucosal immunity in order to reduce infection of and transmission from vaccinated individuals. This could also reduce the possibility of variant selection in vaccinated individuals." ref: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00550-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00550-x
  - l33tman 5y ago
    But won't the mucosa learn to produce the IgA antibodies when you get exposed the next time though? The virus is going to be endemic forever, all who got and will get the vaccine are going to get exposed again and again. In other words, for the already vaccinated (or post-infected) won't repeated exposure also act as a booster?
nwellnhof 5y ago
This is old news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27943833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27943833 (29 days ago) Also, the 39% number is the average for people vaccinated between January and July. For people vaccinated in January, the Pfizer shot is only 16% effective against the delta variant (scroll down to last page): https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/vaccine-efficacy-safety-follow-up-committee/he/files_publications_corona_two-dose-vaccination-data.pdf https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/vaccine-efficacy-safet... Protection against severe illness is still above 85% though and declines only slowly. Besides, people vaccinated in January were mostly elderly.
dolni 5y ago
Studies continue to show vaccines are less effective than we were all lead to believe. It seems like every new study that comes out lowers the bar even further. Pretty soon we'll be hearing "the vaccine doesn't help at all, but at least it didn't give you cancer" (mild sarcasm there, but you get the point). Each of the big pharma companies were poised to make a boatload of money by being first to produce a vaccine. I'm disappointed, but not surprised.
- eachro 5y ago
  > Each of the big pharma companies were poised to make a boatload of money by being first to produce a vaccine. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. Considering the massive drop in deaths as various countries, US states got vaccinated, I'd say they haven't been compensated enough.
- nitwit005 5y ago
  You're acting like this is a surprise result, but everyone expected this. The vaccine was designed to make you resistant to a different virus. We give out new flu shots every year for a reason.
  - dolni 5y ago
    It wasn't a surprise result, you say? Then how could it be that lockdowns were lifted in the US with barely 50% of the population vaccinated AND without approval for children?
    - yodon 5y ago
      They were lifted because voters were angry and made that anger known to politicians, who responded in a political manner rather than a medical manner.
      - dolni 5y ago
        Exactly what I expected to hear. Let's acknowledge that at least some of the stuff we're seeing is being driven by politics to the detriment of actual science. Some of that might even include (gasp) information about vaccines.
ThatGeoGuy 5y ago
I am extremely skeptical of this. I think the best summary of why this isn't the story is provided by Zvi[1]. See the section "Delta Variant." It's not something I can summarize in a couple short sentences, but the base rate of infections we're seeing from the actual data of delta infections doesn't match the 39% intuition at all. Additionally, the Israel Study seems to be thrown around a lot, but the data is suspicious if you look at our actual delta infection data from every other source. In short, I think there's a lot of panic here that is being done by people who are looking at a single study. [1]: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/08/19/covid-8-19-cracking-the-booster/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/08/19/covid-8-19-cracking-...
CarelessExpert 5y ago
This was reported a month ago and has been discussed ad nauseum, including issues with the Israeli data and methodology. Why bring it up again now? Edit: BTW, regarding the data and methodology, here's a great write-up about why the Israeli top-line numbers can be misleading: https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-can-efficacy-vs-severe-disease-be-strong-when-60-of-hospitalized-are-vaccinated https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-can-...
throwaway19232 5y ago
thread from someone working on the study: https://mobile.twitter.com/dvir_a/status/1420059124700700677 https://mobile.twitter.com/dvir_a/status/1420059124700700677
- lamontcg 5y ago
  Yeah this study is from the leading edge of delta, it needs to get redone, and confounding factors need to get removed.
new_realist 5y ago
How much of this is from waning immunity due to “expiring” early vaccinations without a booster?

41 points by stevetodd 5y ago

joelbondurant 5y ago

Diaper Face Alert! Diaper Face Alert! This is a paid advertisement of the Diaper Face Alert System.

andybar007 5y ago

Does this take into account that folks in Israel received their shots a while ago?

j_walter 5y ago

39% effective against infection, but the big sticking point is that it "Largely prevents severe illness"...ie keeping people out of the hospital. That is the crucial need right now with the delta spread.

jefft255 5y ago
My understanding is that it's pretty clear that vaccine do not do a good job at preventing infection (i.e. testing positive and/or having cold-like symptoms), Delta or not. I don't think they were ever advertised as such.
- selykg 5y ago
  > I don't think they were ever advertised as such. Correct based on my understanding. But sadly I see people quoting all the time (on social media) that it prevents infection. So there's probably a fair bit of misconception out there
- HWR_14 5y ago
  The mRNA vaccines were very good at preventing any infection, between 80% and 95% effective depending on variant and study. J&J was between 65 and 80% depending on the variant and study. All of them have been excellent at preventing hospitalization and death. And they definitely were advertised as helping to prevent the spread. That's the whole "herd immunity" thing. After all, one goal is to prevent the epidemic from hitting the unvaccinated.
  - rmdashrfstar 5y ago
    Vaccines does not _prevent_ infection. Vaccines prevent _diseases_ that can be dangerous, or even deadly. Vaccines greatly reduce the _risk_ of infection by working with the body’s natural defenses to safely develop immunity to disease.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      You're speaking nonsense. If you mean the vaccine doesn't prevent a virus particle from going into your body, you are correct. They aid the immune system in fighting the virus once it's inside. "Infection" is usually used when some boundary of viral load is crossed, a boundary almost impossible to reach through any means other than internal incubation. Hence, vaccines prevent infection.
- JshWright 5y ago
  That depends on what you mean by "good job". It's certainly better at preventing sever illness than it is at preventing infection altogether, but it's still quite good at that (better than the typical flu vaccine, for instance).
- j_walter 5y ago
  Politicians certainly didn't deliver a great message about it though...when they are the ones that are giving out 99% of the information about the vaccine (since I don't think the drug companies can advertise a non-approved drug). Many vaccines are meant to prevent infection, but this type is meant to mostly reduce the chance of severe infection by training your body to see the virus sooner and know how to attack it with less "training".
  - dmwallin 5y ago
    >>> training your body to see the virus sooner and know how to attack it with less "training" This is literally how every vaccine ever made works.
    - j_walter 5y ago
      Yes, but some are better at never getting infected in the first place, like chicken pox, hepatitis or measles.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tmaly 5y ago
  it is my understanding that mRNA technology makes it easier to create vaccines. Why can we just do a version 2 that does work better against delta?
  - bamboozled 5y ago
    Probably because this version is doing well enough?
71a54xd 5y ago
This is the media "grift" I absolutely can't believe. The vaccine IS preventing people from dying and it's largely known that the vaccine doesn't prevent infection or spread. That said, GET THE VACCINE, I do not intend for this to sound like I'm condoning any kind of anti-vax narrative! Political fluff is expected, but keeping millions of people afraid and irate about information that deeply pertains to both their physical and mental health for what gain?
- kindatrue 5y ago
  >for what gain Those clicks!
  - 71a54xd 5y ago
    Obviously! But at what point will educated people (regardless of their political views) realize that playing fast and loose with this kind of media is damaging to everyone and their wellbeing?
HWR_14 5y ago
The 39% is against getting an infection, and I believe that includes the ability to transmit the infection on. It definitely is crucial that Re (R0 modified by measures like vaccines and masks) be kept below 1 if at all possible. The preventing severe illness is still holding pretty firm, but not as strong as against other variants. Still a very good chance. And preventing hospitalizations is even stronger.
- j_walter 5y ago
  I haven't seen any good information on transmission. My gut feeling is that less symptoms == less transmissibility, but I have no data to back that up. One study has put the delta R0 around the same as Measles...which is 3x original COVID, but still less than Chicken Pox.
  - breadzeppelin__ 5y ago
    > less symptoms == less transmissibility doesn't really hold up when asymptomatic spread (no symptoms at all) has been one of the main concerns for the entire pandemic
    - j_walter 5y ago
      Sure, but everything also said its spread through the air...no coughing == less droplets. The spread concern would be if people aren't taking the same precautions because they aren't showing symptoms, but if still wearing masks or social distancing then the transmission should be less. That being said most people aren't taking precautions any more because of this...I've seen people directly exposed for up to 2 days to someone with COVID w/ symptoms who then gets an immediate negative test and goes on with their life and not wearing masks in public/work. No amount of yelling or shaming does any good when people are oblivious to their own self destructive behavior.
    - wbsss4412 5y ago
      It’s important to distinguish between asymptomatic infection and presymptomatic infection. The biggest problem with COVID-19 compared to previous forms of SARS viruses is its ability to spread before the onset of symptoms, which is different from someone displaying no symptoms at all from infection. I’m not completely sure how infectious an asymptomatic infection is, but i just wanted to note a lot of the concern has actually been about presymptomatic infection.
senectus1 5y ago
39% against infection is bloody good. I'll take that (actually i already have)

hourislate 5y ago

Need to come up with a Nasal Spray version. The mucosal immune system represents the body’s first line of defense and makes up most of the immune system and should be more effective than an intramuscular shot. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-sniffing-alternative-scientists-nasal-mist.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-sniffing-alternative-... Researchers even observed the nasal vaccine to be more effective than if administered into the muscles, Damron said. He explained that a high amount of IgA antibody gets released into the nose and lungs, forging a wall of protection at the site where viruses begin to replicate.

superkuh 5y ago
Yes. No intramuscular vaccination for a respiratory virus is going to be effective at preventing infection of the surface, mucosal, tissues in the upper respiratory tract. The IgG antibodies in the body serum do seep into the lower lungs though and prevent serious diseases there and in the body proper. To provide sterilizing immunity to the upper respiratory mucosa we'll need an intranasal booster after the intramuscular to recruit resident B and T cells to the upper respiratory mucosa. There the B cells will make IgA antibodies for a much longer time than IgG antibodies can seep in at any useful level. Additionally the resident T cells will kill off any cells that do get infected. This is a nuanced issue. We need to be clear that there is a difference between infection of the body organs and infection of the surface mucosal tissues. ref: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6553/397 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6553/397 ref: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evoluti https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evoluti... page 5, #8. "Whilst we feel that current vaccines are excellent for reducing the risk of hospital admission and disease, we propose that research be focused on vaccines that also induce high and durable levels of mucosal immunity in order to reduce infection of and transmission from vaccinated individuals. This could also reduce the possibility of variant selection in vaccinated individuals." ref: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00550-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00550-x
- l33tman 5y ago
  But won't the mucosa learn to produce the IgA antibodies when you get exposed the next time though? The virus is going to be endemic forever, all who got and will get the vaccine are going to get exposed again and again. In other words, for the already vaccinated (or post-infected) won't repeated exposure also act as a booster?

nwellnhof 5y ago

This is old news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27943833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27943833 (29 days ago) Also, the 39% number is the average for people vaccinated between January and July. For people vaccinated in January, the Pfizer shot is only 16% effective against the delta variant (scroll down to last page): https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/vaccine-efficacy-safety-follow-up-committee/he/files_publications_corona_two-dose-vaccination-data.pdf https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/vaccine-efficacy-safet... Protection against severe illness is still above 85% though and declines only slowly. Besides, people vaccinated in January were mostly elderly.

dolni 5y ago

Studies continue to show vaccines are less effective than we were all lead to believe. It seems like every new study that comes out lowers the bar even further. Pretty soon we'll be hearing "the vaccine doesn't help at all, but at least it didn't give you cancer" (mild sarcasm there, but you get the point). Each of the big pharma companies were poised to make a boatload of money by being first to produce a vaccine. I'm disappointed, but not surprised.

eachro 5y ago
> Each of the big pharma companies were poised to make a boatload of money by being first to produce a vaccine. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. Considering the massive drop in deaths as various countries, US states got vaccinated, I'd say they haven't been compensated enough.
nitwit005 5y ago
You're acting like this is a surprise result, but everyone expected this. The vaccine was designed to make you resistant to a different virus. We give out new flu shots every year for a reason.
- dolni 5y ago
  It wasn't a surprise result, you say? Then how could it be that lockdowns were lifted in the US with barely 50% of the population vaccinated AND without approval for children?
  - yodon 5y ago
    They were lifted because voters were angry and made that anger known to politicians, who responded in a political manner rather than a medical manner.
    - dolni 5y ago
      Exactly what I expected to hear. Let's acknowledge that at least some of the stuff we're seeing is being driven by politics to the detriment of actual science. Some of that might even include (gasp) information about vaccines.

ThatGeoGuy 5y ago

I am extremely skeptical of this. I think the best summary of why this isn't the story is provided by Zvi[1]. See the section "Delta Variant." It's not something I can summarize in a couple short sentences, but the base rate of infections we're seeing from the actual data of delta infections doesn't match the 39% intuition at all. Additionally, the Israel Study seems to be thrown around a lot, but the data is suspicious if you look at our actual delta infection data from every other source. In short, I think there's a lot of panic here that is being done by people who are looking at a single study. [1]: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/08/19/covid-8-19-cracking-the-booster/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/08/19/covid-8-19-cracking-...

CarelessExpert 5y ago

This was reported a month ago and has been discussed ad nauseum, including issues with the Israeli data and methodology. Why bring it up again now? Edit: BTW, regarding the data and methodology, here's a great write-up about why the Israeli top-line numbers can be misleading: https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-can-efficacy-vs-severe-disease-be-strong-when-60-of-hospitalized-are-vaccinated https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-can-...

throwaway19232 5y ago

thread from someone working on the study: https://mobile.twitter.com/dvir_a/status/1420059124700700677 https://mobile.twitter.com/dvir_a/status/1420059124700700677

lamontcg 5y ago
Yeah this study is from the leading edge of delta, it needs to get redone, and confounding factors need to get removed.

new_realist 5y ago

How much of this is from waning immunity due to “expiring” early vaccinations without a booster?