Here’s some great news on Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine that comes from Israel’s vaccination campaign over the last 3 months:
NY POST – Real-world data from Israel has revealed that Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine is 94 percent effective in preventing asymptomatic cases, the companies said Thursday.
Using data from Israel’s vaccination campaign between Jan. 17 and March 16, the vaccine was also found to prevent 97 percent of symptomatic disease, severe disease and death, the drugmakers said.
“This comprehensive real-world evidence can be of importance to countries around the world as they advance their own vaccination campaigns one year after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic,” the two pharmaceutical companies said in a statement.
The data, which was collected by the Israeli health ministry, has not been peer-reviewed.
Israel has led the fastest vaccination rollout in the world, due in part to an agreement to share data with Pfizer and BioNTech.
The latest analysis is “important” because it occurred when the highly contagious UK variant was prevalent, said Ugur Sahin, chief executive of BioNTech.
More than 80 percent of the samples tested in the country at the time were the UK variant, known as B.1.1.7.
Yeheskel Levy, director of the health ministry, said the study “clearly demonstrates the power of the Covid-19 vaccine to fight this virus.”
“We aim to achieve even higher uptake in people of all ages, which gives us hope of regaining normal economic and social function in the not-so-distant future,” he said in a statement.
Many have been worried about asymptomatic spread of the virus among those who’ve had both vaccinations. But if this data holds true, then I think it pretty much proves that the asymptomatic spread, at least among Pfizer vaccine recipients, is not an issue any longer.
Which honestly makes sense, but it’s nice to have real world data to back up what should be the case. So maybe the CDC can finally get off their duff and stop holding Americans back who’ve had the vaccine.