Short story: vaccines work. Data from Israel’s implementation of the Pfizer vaccine, which was carried out in a broad campaign, shows that this is also working fast. Only the first survey alone significantly reduces the transfer risk, with estimates ranging from 33% to 60%. This is exactly the impact one would hope to see from a vaccine in a pandemic, but so far has not been quantified.
This questions the currently slow start of vaccinations to the masses:
Initial data from Israel’s vaccination campaign shows that Pfizer’s vaccine against coronavirus is fighting infections by about 50 percent, 14 days after the first of two shots was given, a Ministry of Health official said on Tuesday. cases all reach peaks of all times.
Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of the public health department of the Ministry of Health, told Channel 12 News that the data were preliminary, and based on the results of coronavirus tests among those who received the vaccine and those who did not. do not have.
Other, somewhat contradictory data were released by Israeli health maintenance organizations on Tuesday night. Channel 13 News said that according to figures released by Clalit, Israel’s largest health provider, the chance of someone being infected with the coronavirus had dropped by 33% 14 days after they were vaccinated. Separate figures recorded by the Maccabi health provider and broadcast on Channel 12 showed that the vaccine caused a 60% drop in the chance of infection 14 days after the first shot was taken.
As noted, Israel’s transmission figures do not show the full impact of this phenomenon, but the news is nonetheless encouraging. This suggests that broad vaccination programs would delay the spread of community transmission almost immediately, and that the second survey would eliminate it all but if given wide enough. With the first shot, Israel reached only 20% of its population, which is much further than the US has managed, but the population of Israel is also much smaller and more concentrated.
The lesson here is to get as many people vaccinated as possible with their first shot. Perhaps the CDC looked at the Israeli data yesterday to make their policy change, but it seems to be more about the perverse incentives of the stricter implementation regime they first announced. This has led to the destruction of doses to avoid draconian penalties for out-of-the-box vaccinations, an outcome that is not only outrageous but completely counterproductive. Now New York is taking down those perverse incentives, at least in terms of vaccinating the elderly and those with severe co-morbidities, but only after a massive public backlash over the ridiculous outcomes of their heavy-handed enforcement.
This can still be too restrictive a plan. If we want to slow down the transmission rate to fully reopen our economies, we need to get our entire population vaccinated quickly. This, of course, means solving demand and distribution problems, but the better plan may be to transfer the doses to the existing distribution channels in the private sector and let them go. Let Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Target and other pharmacies get it from the manufacturer in enough arms to bend the curve seriously downwards. It will also help protect the vulnerable by making COVID-19 less pronounced in the population, perhaps as soon as a week or two after a serious and broad implementation has begun.
Let’s get it done. Quickly.