“Israel will become an international immunization laboratory,” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed quite excitedly at the Davos Forum recently. In terms of the proportion of the vaccinated population, the rate of inoculation of the new crown vaccine in Israel is the highest in the world, and greatly exceeds that of the second-ranked UAE. From February 4th, the target group for vaccination will be further expanded to cover all citizens over 16 years old.
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According to the latest data from the Israeli Ministry of Health on the 3rd, 35.78% of the population in the country has received one dose of the new crown vaccine, and 20.69% of the population has completed two doses of vaccination.
As Netanyahu said, mass vaccination provides valuable data for the actual effect of the new crown vaccine. The data provided by the Israeli Ministry of Health is even more encouraging. After two doses of vaccination, the infection rate of new coronary pneumonia among Israelis over 60 years old is only 0.07%.
In an interview with a reporter from China Business News, Song Jing, a postdoctoral associate researcher at the Benaroya Research Institute in the United States and a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Jerusalem in Israel, said that the Pfizer vaccine, which is mainly administered in Israel as an example, is targeted at the elderly over 65 The effective rate of humans is 94%, and the current infection rate of 0.07% is quite low. In addition to the effect of the vaccine itself, the protection of the elderly and the current lockdown of the city are also important factors.
Vaccine effect is emerging
Israel took the lead in launching the new crown vaccination plan on December 20, 2020. High-risk groups such as medical staff, people over 60, and patients with severe and chronic diseases were the first to receive the vaccine. The results show that the vaccine has a good protective effect on the elderly.
Since then, the Israeli Ministry of Health has studied the medical records of nearly 1 million people, and the time of screening is that they have received the second dose of the new crown vaccine for at least 7 days. Of these, 743,800 are elderly people over 60. According to statistics, among the elderly, only 531 were infected with the new coronavirus, and the confirmed rate was 0.07%.
Among the 531 infected individuals, 38 had a moderate or higher condition requiring hospitalization, and 3 died. The Israeli Ministry of Health believes that they may be infected earlier and the vaccine has not had time to work.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Health, the data show that the number of infections and illnesses has continued to decline 14 days after receiving the first dose of the vaccine. Pfizer previously stated that the effective rate after the first dose of vaccination is about 52%, and a few days after the second dose of vaccination, the effective rate will rise to about 95%.
And Maccabi, the second largest medical service institution in Israel, also published research data. One week after the second dose of vaccine, 66 out of 248,000 people were infected with the new crown virus, accounting for about 0.03%, and they were all No hospitalization is required for mild cases.
“Immunity Laboratory”
It is worth noting that although the effect of the new crown vaccine in the elderly in Israel has begun to appear, two-thirds of the country’s population has not yet been vaccinated. Since the beginning of winter, the number of confirmed cases of new crown pneumonia in Israel has maintained a high growth.
In response to the epidemic, Israel began to implement the third nationwide “city closure” measure since December 27 last year. Netanyahu said in a statement that in order to protect people from the mutated new crown virus, “closing the city” and closing border ports are also important tools for Israel to fight the epidemic.
But this brings a variable to scientists when studying the effects of vaccines. Whether the sharp decline in elderly cases is the effect of the lockdown or the efficacy of the vaccine. For this reason, Israeli scientists analyzed the country’s case data by age and city, and found that the infection rate and hospitalization rate of both of the elderly over 60 years old and the city with a higher vaccination rate have dropped significantly. The data on the lockdown is quite different, further confirming the efficacy of the vaccine.
Ran Balicer, chairman of Israel’s national anti-epidemic expert group, said that vaccines have two major effects. First, they have direct effects, namely the prevention of new coronary pneumonia infection and its severe effects. The second is the indirect effect, which means that the vaccine can produce immunity to enough people, stop epidemics, and prevent the further spread of the virus. Now that the new crown vaccine has proven to have a direct effect, the effect of herd immunity is still unknown. This requires more time and data to confirm.
A few days ago, the Israeli Ministry of Health announced an abridged version of its agreement with Pfizer. It revealed that Pfizer will ensure that Israel will receive the new crown vaccine in an early and stable manner, and in return, Israel will provide relevant data. Medical experts said that Israeli data provide a powerful reference for researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and government policy making.
From the perspective of a researcher, Song Jing told CBN reporters that if more than 80% of the general population is immunized, herd immunity can be achieved. If Israel advances vaccines at the current rate, it is most likely to be the first to achieve this ratio. s country.
She said that Israel’s large-scale vaccination has facilitated the study of the duration of antibodies on a larger scale. At the same time, she said that the current phase III trials of most vaccines take about half a year, and Israel’s large-scale vaccination is equivalent to a large-scale post-phase III clinical trial, which is conducive to observing the side effects of the vaccine over a longer period of time. Both provide a large number of cases and data for research.
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