A nationwide lockdown in Israel is to be extended until the end of the month amid a spike in cases – despite an intense vaccination campaign, with more than two of the nine million population already having received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
It takes time for immunity to build up, so its expected to take several weeks for vaccines to have an impact on cases
The man coordinating Israel’s pandemic response, Nachman Ash, has warned that a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the country has been “less effective than we thought”.
According to Israeli Army Radio, Prof Ash told cabinet members on Tuesday the data on the protective effect of a first dose against the virus was “lower than Pfizer presented”. Pfizer said its vaccine was roughly 52% effective two weeks after the first dose and reaches maximum efficacy of 95% after the second.
It’s not clear what data he is referring to, but a not-yet published study from Israel’s largest healthcare provider suggested a 33% fall in infections by day 14, at which point, full immunity would not have been reached.
Infections continued to fall in the following days but the numbers were too small to put a percentage on it.
The health ministry said on Tuesday more than 12,400 Israelis had tested positive for Covid-19 ten days after being vaccinated – 69 of these had already received a second dose.
This was 6.6% of the 189,000 people who took Covid tests after being vaccinated, roughly tallying with the reported efficacy.
Health experts say they are analysing the new Israeli data closely but warn it may be too early to draw any conclusions on the single dose efficacy of the vaccine based on the initial data gathered in Israel, which began vaccinating its population on 19 December.
