A study found that people who receive the Pfizer vaccine are 94% less likely to develop symptomatic COVID-19.
Israeli researchers have found that fully vaccinated people are 92% less likely to develop severe cases.
The study compared 600,000 vaccinated people to a similarly sized group of unvaccinated people, Reuters wrote.
Visit Insider’s Business section for more stories.
People who receive the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine are much less likely to develop symptomatic or severe COVID-19, according to a new study in Israel.
Researchers from Israel’s largest healthcare provider, Clalit, examined 600,000 Israelis who had received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
They reported a 94% drop in symptomatic coronavirus infections – when patients develop symptoms such as fever or shortness of breath – among people who had been vaccinated compared to those who had not, Reuters reported on Sunday.
Read more: ICE does not intend to vaccinate 13,860 immigrants in its care against COVID-19. Here’s how one of America’s most at-risk groups slips through the cracks.
The preliminary study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, also found that people who had been fully vaccinated were 92% less likely to develop severe COVID-19 that could require hospitalization. , intensive care or a ventilator.
‘Extremely effective in the real world’
An Israeli military paramedic prepares a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, which will be given to elderly people at a medical center in Ashdod, southern Israel, on January 7, 2021.
Tsafrir Abayov / AP Images
In December, Pfizer announced that its vaccine was 95% effective in preventing symptomatic coronavirus infections in clinical trials. The new Clalit study highlights this effectiveness with the general public outside a controlled trial setting.
“This unequivocally shows that Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is extremely effective in the real world one week after the second dose, just as it was found in the clinical study,” said Ran Balicer, chief innovation officer by Clalit, to Reuters.
He added that the vaccine is even more effective two weeks after the second shot.
Clalit health services cover more than half of Israeli patients, which may make it easier for Clalit researchers to compare vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
They compared the 600,000 people who had received two doses of Pfizer vaccine to an unvaccinated group of the same size. Both groups had similar medical histories.
According to the Wall Street Journal, 430,000 of these people were between 16 and 59 years old and 170,000 were 60 years or older.
So far, Israel has fully immunized 28.5% of its population. It is more than any other country.
Recent research from Clalit is the largest vaccine study in the country to date.
