Finally, some data from Israel on vaccine effectiveness. Before we start, a couple of comments: 1. Almost all new infections in Israel are with the delta variant. 2. We don’t believe confirmed cases count since there are complicated incentives for testings. 
The data that we look at is new severe hospitalizations by age group and vaccination status. Let's look at the numbers:
Since the start of July, there were 117 severe cases. Of them, 79 in ages 60+, 28 in ages 40-60 and 10 below 40.
Since the start of July, there were 117 severe cases. Of them, 79 in ages 60+, 28 in ages 40-60 and 10 below 40.
> In the 40-60 group (blue), 8 of the 28 were vaccinated (29%). About 85% of this group is vaccinated, so this translated to ~90% effectiveness. More or less what we expect. Great. (below 40, there are 10 unvaccinated severe patients)
> In the 65+ group (red) 71 were vaccinated (90%). This looks much more troubling. What is going on here? According to the data, around 95% of this group are vaccinated, which would translate to ~50% effectiveness. Could that be an underestimate?
I think so. I think that there are more than 95% that are protected: that includes people outside the country (~2%), recovering of COVID-19 (~2%), and differences between sectors (the spread is now mostly in the general pop, not Arabs or ultraorthodox which are less vaccinated).
What does that mean? If the “real” background is 98% protected, it brings us towards ~80% effectiveness, which is probably what we would expect waning immunity in older population.
Another piece of information we received is the number of patients currently in severe conditions. In the 60+ group, there are 36 vaccinated and 10 unvaccinated. According to the data above in the last week, there were 34 new severe cases, only 2 unvaccinated.
If we assume all of them are still in severe condition, that will leave us with 4 vaccinated cases and 8 unvaccinated cases that are severe for over a week. In the 10 days before there were 37 vaccinated cases and 6 unvaccinated.
The conclusion from this is that vaccinated patients are improving much more rapidly from severe disease.
End.
End.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
