vi-va
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2019
- Messages
- 6,475
- Reaction score
- 3
- Country
- Location
JAB BLOW One dose of vaccine ‘only 33% effective’ leaving over-60s vulnerable, Israeli experts claim
Millions of people have now received their first vaccine dose, including more than half of the over-80s.
4
Staff give vaccinations to patients at the Bournemouth International Centre on January 19,Credit: Getty Images - Getty
But the latest research in Israel - where more people have been vaccinated per capita than anywhere else in the world - suggests the elderly are more vulnerable to Covid than believed after their initial jab.
The UK Government’s vaccine advisors said the efficacy of the vaccine was 89 per cent, starting 14 days after the first dose.
"Short term protection from dose one is very high," the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) announced in a statement in December.
It was for this reason that decisions were made to give people their second dose after 12 weeks, rather than three, in order to speed up the roll-out and "save many lives".
However, preliminary and unpublished research from Israel paints a worrying picture.
Scientists compared 200,000 people over the age of 60 who had been given their first dose with 200,000 people who had not.
They looked at the “daily positivity rate”, which is how many people tested positive for the virus.
4
Israeli research raises concerns about the real efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine after one doseCredit: Reuters
4
How the Covid vaccine from Pfizer works
Speaking to Sky News, Professor Ran Balicer, an adviser to the World Health Organization, said: “We saw that there was no difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated until day 14 post-vaccination.
"But on day 14 post-vaccination, a drop of 33 per cent in positivity was witnessed in the vaccinated group and not in the unvaccinated.”
Prof Balicer is an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer for Clalit, the largest health care provider in Israel which conducted the study.
He said the findings were “really good news” - but perhaps not for the UK, where people are not expected to receive their second dose for several weeks yet.
Asked about the UK strategy, Prof Balicer said the 89 per cent figure seemed "very optimistic" but understood why compromises needed to be made.
"We could not see 89 per cent reduction in the data we reported,” he said.
"If you are short of vaccines, this is a good idea... We believe that if you take the booster shot, even after six weeks, then you will have an effect, the effect is coming and growing gradually.”
Israel’s coronavirus tsar Professor Nachman Ash said a single dose appeared “less effective than we had thought”, and also lower than Pfizer had suggested, The Guardian reported.
Pfizer itself says a single dose of its vaccine is about 52 per cent effective, which rises to 95 per cent after the second dose. This is based on how many people in the trial developed symptoms of Covid-19.
4
A man receives a dose of Covid-19 vaccine in central Israeli city of Givatayim, January 19Credit: Rex Features
The Israeli research appeared to look for cases of both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases of Covid with testing.
It suggests the efficacy dropped because cases of asymptomatic infection were discovered.
Real world research
This is the first time the impact of the vaccine has been studied outside of clinical trials.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Adviser in the UK, said in the real world, vaccine efficacy may drop below what was seen in the trials.
And he admitted the UK will need to look “very carefully” at the new data from Israel, while collecting more information from the UK over the coming weeks.
Asked about Israel’s claims on Sky News this morning, Sir Patrick said studies showed that from day 10 after vaccination to 21 days and beyond, it was “much more like 89 per cent”.
Though he admitted, “when you get into real-world practice things are seldom quite as good as clinical trials”.
He added: “It probably won’t be as high as that in practice, but I don’t think it’ll be as low as the figures you’ve just given.”
Why does the UK wait 12 weeks between doses?
The Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the new process will allow more people to get the vaccine sooner and help the country out of the pandemic "by spring".
He told the BBC on December 30: "It's very good news for accelerating the vaccine roll-out. It brings forward the day we can get our lives back to normal."
Explaining the 12-week gap in the dosing regimen, he said: "This is important because it means that we can get the first dose into more people more quickly and they can get the protection the first dose gives you.
"The scientists and the regulators have looked at the data and found that you get what they call 'very effective protection' from the first dose.
"The second dose is still important - especially for the long-term protection - but it does mean that we will be able to vaccinate more people more quickly than we previously could."
Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething also said the decision to extend the gap between the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine would avoid more deaths.
He said: "Think of it in this way: if you have two doses of the vaccine available you could choose to give that to one person to provide them with full excellent protection, or you could decide to give two doses to two different people to provide both of them with high level protection."
Some scientists have concerns that spacing out the doses could impact long-term protection and even increase the risk of an "escaped mutant" variant which could be resistant to the vaccines.
Asked about this in a Downing Street briefing on January 6, England's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty admitted it was a "real worry but quite a small real worry".
Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the reports from Israel “are insufficient to provide any evidence” the UK’s vaccine strategy is wrong.
Prof Evans said: “It is not sensible to compare efficacy derived from an observational study of this type which is subject to many biases.”
He also said detecting cases of Covid in the sample group “may be less important” for the UK - where ministers are keen to drive down hospitalisations and deaths in the most at-risk groups.
He said: “It was suggested from the randomised trials [by Pfizer] that efficacy against hospitalisation was greater than that against detected Covid-19 cases.”
The UK’s original vaccine programme planned to give people their second dose 21 days after the first, which is what Pfizer recommends.
The change to a gap of 12 weeks was made in order to speed up the roll-out during the most serious point of the pandemic, spread doses across a larger population, and therefore save more lives.
Professor Chris Whitty said at a Downing Street briefing on January 6: "By extending the gap [between doses], we are going to over the next three months essentially double the number of people who can be vaccinated."
The four chief medical officers of the UK have said they are "confident" the first dose provides substantial protection within two to three weeks.
And scientists say this is likely to last for at least three months - but there is no robust data to support this.
Regardless, experts say that vaccines can take weeks to build immunity, and therefore people must continue to be careful and keep following Covid restrictions after having their first dose.
Neither the Pfizer or Oxford/AstraZeneca jab is 100 per cent effective at preventing Covid-19, even after both doses have been given.
It means a very small number of people who have the jabs could still develop Covid-19.
www.thesun.co.uk
- Vanessa Chalmers, Digital Health Reporter
- 20 Jan 2021, 11:55
- Updated: 20 Jan 2021, 12:45
Millions of people have now received their first vaccine dose, including more than half of the over-80s.
4
Staff give vaccinations to patients at the Bournemouth International Centre on January 19,Credit: Getty Images - Getty
But the latest research in Israel - where more people have been vaccinated per capita than anywhere else in the world - suggests the elderly are more vulnerable to Covid than believed after their initial jab.
The UK Government’s vaccine advisors said the efficacy of the vaccine was 89 per cent, starting 14 days after the first dose.
"Short term protection from dose one is very high," the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) announced in a statement in December.
It was for this reason that decisions were made to give people their second dose after 12 weeks, rather than three, in order to speed up the roll-out and "save many lives".
However, preliminary and unpublished research from Israel paints a worrying picture.
Scientists compared 200,000 people over the age of 60 who had been given their first dose with 200,000 people who had not.
They looked at the “daily positivity rate”, which is how many people tested positive for the virus.
4
Israeli research raises concerns about the real efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine after one doseCredit: Reuters
4
How the Covid vaccine from Pfizer works
Speaking to Sky News, Professor Ran Balicer, an adviser to the World Health Organization, said: “We saw that there was no difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated until day 14 post-vaccination.
"But on day 14 post-vaccination, a drop of 33 per cent in positivity was witnessed in the vaccinated group and not in the unvaccinated.”
Prof Balicer is an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer for Clalit, the largest health care provider in Israel which conducted the study.
He said the findings were “really good news” - but perhaps not for the UK, where people are not expected to receive their second dose for several weeks yet.
Asked about the UK strategy, Prof Balicer said the 89 per cent figure seemed "very optimistic" but understood why compromises needed to be made.
"We could not see 89 per cent reduction in the data we reported,” he said.
"If you are short of vaccines, this is a good idea... We believe that if you take the booster shot, even after six weeks, then you will have an effect, the effect is coming and growing gradually.”
Israel’s coronavirus tsar Professor Nachman Ash said a single dose appeared “less effective than we had thought”, and also lower than Pfizer had suggested, The Guardian reported.
Pfizer itself says a single dose of its vaccine is about 52 per cent effective, which rises to 95 per cent after the second dose. This is based on how many people in the trial developed symptoms of Covid-19.
4
A man receives a dose of Covid-19 vaccine in central Israeli city of Givatayim, January 19Credit: Rex Features
The Israeli research appeared to look for cases of both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases of Covid with testing.
It suggests the efficacy dropped because cases of asymptomatic infection were discovered.
Real world research
This is the first time the impact of the vaccine has been studied outside of clinical trials.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Adviser in the UK, said in the real world, vaccine efficacy may drop below what was seen in the trials.
And he admitted the UK will need to look “very carefully” at the new data from Israel, while collecting more information from the UK over the coming weeks.
Asked about Israel’s claims on Sky News this morning, Sir Patrick said studies showed that from day 10 after vaccination to 21 days and beyond, it was “much more like 89 per cent”.
Though he admitted, “when you get into real-world practice things are seldom quite as good as clinical trials”.
He added: “It probably won’t be as high as that in practice, but I don’t think it’ll be as low as the figures you’ve just given.”
Why does the UK wait 12 weeks between doses?
The Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the new process will allow more people to get the vaccine sooner and help the country out of the pandemic "by spring".
He told the BBC on December 30: "It's very good news for accelerating the vaccine roll-out. It brings forward the day we can get our lives back to normal."
Explaining the 12-week gap in the dosing regimen, he said: "This is important because it means that we can get the first dose into more people more quickly and they can get the protection the first dose gives you.
"The scientists and the regulators have looked at the data and found that you get what they call 'very effective protection' from the first dose.
"The second dose is still important - especially for the long-term protection - but it does mean that we will be able to vaccinate more people more quickly than we previously could."
Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething also said the decision to extend the gap between the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine would avoid more deaths.
He said: "Think of it in this way: if you have two doses of the vaccine available you could choose to give that to one person to provide them with full excellent protection, or you could decide to give two doses to two different people to provide both of them with high level protection."
Some scientists have concerns that spacing out the doses could impact long-term protection and even increase the risk of an "escaped mutant" variant which could be resistant to the vaccines.
Asked about this in a Downing Street briefing on January 6, England's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty admitted it was a "real worry but quite a small real worry".
Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the reports from Israel “are insufficient to provide any evidence” the UK’s vaccine strategy is wrong.
Prof Evans said: “It is not sensible to compare efficacy derived from an observational study of this type which is subject to many biases.”
He also said detecting cases of Covid in the sample group “may be less important” for the UK - where ministers are keen to drive down hospitalisations and deaths in the most at-risk groups.
He said: “It was suggested from the randomised trials [by Pfizer] that efficacy against hospitalisation was greater than that against detected Covid-19 cases.”
The UK’s original vaccine programme planned to give people their second dose 21 days after the first, which is what Pfizer recommends.
The change to a gap of 12 weeks was made in order to speed up the roll-out during the most serious point of the pandemic, spread doses across a larger population, and therefore save more lives.
Professor Chris Whitty said at a Downing Street briefing on January 6: "By extending the gap [between doses], we are going to over the next three months essentially double the number of people who can be vaccinated."
The four chief medical officers of the UK have said they are "confident" the first dose provides substantial protection within two to three weeks.
And scientists say this is likely to last for at least three months - but there is no robust data to support this.
Regardless, experts say that vaccines can take weeks to build immunity, and therefore people must continue to be careful and keep following Covid restrictions after having their first dose.
Neither the Pfizer or Oxford/AstraZeneca jab is 100 per cent effective at preventing Covid-19, even after both doses have been given.
It means a very small number of people who have the jabs could still develop Covid-19.
One dose of vaccine 'only 33% effective', Israeli experts claim
ONE dose of the Pfizer vaccine is only 33 per cent effective, Israeli experts claim, raising questions over the UK’s plans to delay the second dose for three months. Millions of people have now rec…
www.thesun.co.uk
