A new study conducted by the Israeli Health Ministry and the Pfizer company shows that the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine reduces coronavirus infections, serious cases, and mortality from the disease by at least 90%.
The study states that the effectiveness of the vaccine against infection is 89.4%. The authors, including the director general of the Health Ministry, Prof. Hezi Levy, and the head of public health services, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, qualified this figure, explaining that people who have been vaccinated face fewer restrictions on their movement and are less likely to be tested for the coronavirus, and stated that further study needs to be done on the prevention of asymptomatic infection.
The Health Ministry stated that the figure regarding the effectiveness against infection is the least certain in relation to the other figures presented - the vaccine is 93.7% effective against symptomatic infection, 93.3% effective against cases of infection serious enough to require hospitalization, 93.9% effective in preventing cases in which the patient is in serious or critical condition, and 92.9% effective in preventing mortality from the coronavirus. Unlike other tests, in this case only the population which was tested were people who had received the second dose of the coronavirus vaccine at least seven days prior.
The pharmaceutical companies have focused on the effectiveness of disease vaccines with symptoms in the majority of their trials, and have not tested whether the vaccines prevent people from getting infected - and therefore also from infecting others. The new data suggests that those who have been vaccinated should not be able to transmit the virus to others, at least when it comes to the common variant and the British mutation of the coronavirus. The Health Ministry and Pfizer write that this means Israel should be able to bring the epidemic under control if enough of the population is vaccinated.