JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s largest healthcare provider on Sunday reported a 94% drop in symptomatic COVID-19 infections among 600,000 people who received two doses of Pfizer vaccine in the country’s largest study to date.
The health maintenance organization (HMO), Clalit, which accounts for more than half of all Israelis, said that the same group is also 92% less likely to develop serious diseases due to the virus.
The comparison was against a group of the same size, with corresponding medical history, who did not receive the vaccine.
“It shows unequivocally that Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is extremely effective in the real world a week after the second dose, just as it appears in the clinical study,” said Ran Balicer, Clalit’s head of innovation.
He added that the data indicated that the Pfizer vaccine, developed in partnership with German BioNTech, was even more effective two weeks or more after the second shot.
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, which compiled the national data, said Sunday that a sharp decline in hospitalization and serious illnesses seen earlier among the first age group to be vaccinated – 60 years or older – was first seen in those 55 years and older.
Hospitalizations and serious illnesses continue to increase in younger groups who started vaccinations weeks later.
Israel has conducted a rapid deployment of vaccines and its database provides insight into the effectiveness of the vaccine and at what stage countries can achieve herd immunity.
Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Maayan Lubell; Edited by David Goodman