Israel has now fully vaccinated 28 percent of its population against COVID-19 and administered the first dose to 42 percent of its nine million inhabitants, and its data is very promising. Clalit, the largest of Israel's four health-care providers, reported Sunday that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has resulted in a 94 percent drop in symptomatic COVID-19 infections among those who have gotten both doses and a 92 percent decline in severe illness.
Clalit compared 600,000 Israelis who have been fully vaccinated against an equal number who have not, pairing vaccinated people and non-vaccinated people with a similar age and health profile. The majority of people studied were age 16 to 59, but 170,000 of the 600,000 Israelis were 60 or older. "It is now unequivocal that Pfizer's vaccine against the coronavirus is incredibly effective in real life one week after the second dose, just as was found in the clinical study," Ran Balicer, Clalit's chief innovation officer and one of the study's authors, said in a statement Sunday. He said the vaccine is even more effective two weeks after the second shot.
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