Friday, July 23, 2021

Israeli Study Says Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective In Halting The Delta Variant

 

Forbes: Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, But Largely Prevents Severe Illness, Israel Study Suggests 

Recent data from Israel’s health ministry suggests Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine is far less effective at preventing infection and symptomatic illness with the Delta variant than with previous strains of coronavirus, a finding that conflicts with other research indicating high levels of protection against the contagious variant as countries around the world struggle to contain new waves of infection. 

A full course of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was just 39% effective at preventing infections and 41% effective at preventing symptomatic infections caused by the Delta Covid-19 variant, according to Israel’s health ministry, down from early estimates of 64% two weeks ago. 

The figures, based on data from an unspecified number of people between June 20 and July 17, are significantly lower than previous estimates of the vaccine’s efficacy against other variants, which initial clinical trials found to be 95%.  

Read more ....  

Update #1: Pfizer shot just 39% effective in halting Delta, Israel says (Bloomberg) 

Update #2: Israeli, UK data offer mixed signals on vaccine’s potency against Delta strain (Times of Israel)  

WNU Editor: As scary as the above headlines states, the key message from this study is this one .... 

 .... The vaccine still provides very high levels of protection against hospitalization (92%) and severe illness (91%) caused by the Delta variant, the ministry said.  

Bottom line. You may get sick, but you will not end up in the hospital.

Update #3: Here is another variant that has gotten the CDC spooked .... 

 .... French Guiana, We describe a COVID-19 Gamma variant cluster with a high attack rate even in fully vaccinated persons. The Gamma variant is the predominant variant in French Guiana which, as of July 2021, caused a third epidemic wave, threatening to overwhelm the hospital capacity (11). Such a low vaccine efficiency against infection by the Gamma variant was not expected

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