Delta variant, ‘Pfizer vaccine efficacy only 64%’

Bad news coming from Israel this morning. This was announced on Twitter by Yaniv Ehrlich, an Israeli-American scientist and assistant professor at Columbia University, as he re-launched new data from the Ministry of Health in Tel Aviv on the protection of the anti-Covid vaccine against the delta type of covid.

“The Department of Health – writes Ehrlich – reports that Pfizer’s effectiveness in protecting against the delta variant drops to 64% from 94% against other strains. This has important implications for herd immunity and the ability of the virus to heal. It evolves further.”

Data on the spread of the coronavirus in Israel, one of the countries with the highest number of fully vaccinated people, shows that the delta variant, which is associated with the lifting of restrictions, is causing a reduced efficacy of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine used in the country’s vaccination campaign, Fortune writes.

Between May 2 and June 5, the vaccine, field-based in Israel, showed an efficacy of 94.3%. Since June 6, five days after the government lifted restrictions on the spread of the virus in early July, effectiveness has fallen to 64 percent. Last Friday, 55% of the new infections were in people who had already been vaccinated.

Instead, protection against serious cases and hospitalizations are relaxed only, to be determined. Between May 2 and June 5, protection against vaccine treatment in hospitals was 98.2%, compared to 93% recorded from June 6 to July 3. Yesterday there were 35 serious cases of COVID-19 in Israel, up from 21 on July 19.

The Israeli government, which has already reintroduced the use of masks in public places, is considering adopting other distancing measures and the possibility of recommending a third dose of the vaccine.

57% of Israelis are fully vaccinated, 88% are part of the population over the age of 50.