Pfizer vaccine significantly less effective against Delta variant'

[womanofthehills]

From The Jerusalem Post.

This really sucks - not good news coming out of Israel 🙁🙁

The effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine against the Delta variant is “weaker” than health officials hoped, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Friday, as 855 people tested positive for coronavirus and more countries were listed as places of high infection.
“We do not know exactly to what degree the vaccine helps, but it is significantly less,” Bennett said.

…..

The likely explanation is that among the current virus carriers, some 2,000 are schoolchildren, and half of them were fully vaccinated. Both groups are very unlikely to develop severe forms of the disease, even though it occasionally happens – at the moment, around 60% of the patients in serious conditions were vaccinated.
The ministers met for several hours, only completing their meeting shortly before Shabbat, and agreed on several principles, the first of which is to roll out rapid home testing as early as next week.

https://m.jpost.com/breaking-news/for-first-time-since-march-855-new-coronavirus-cases-in-israel-674084

[FakeNoose]

1. They need to start over from scratch on this

Admit that this "Delta variant" is actually a whole new virus that's much scarier and more dangerous. Make up a new vaccine for it and get it out to the people in a fresh wave of vaccinations. Before next year.

[LisaL]

3. Delta variant is not a whole new virus.

It's just a mutant.
WTF would you make a new vaccine? You do realize clinical trials and approval takes years.

[womanofthehills]

13. Pfizer already has a Delta booster shot - ready to go

They will start giving the Delta boosters to the severely immune compromised in Israel. From US News:


“Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said that effective immediately, adults with impaired immune systems who had received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine could get a booster shot, with a decision pending on wider distribution.”

[Liberal In Texas]

27. I would pay to get this booster.

Even if it cost $1000. I would pay for it.

[LisaL]

28. Me too.

But without FDA and CDC approving it, how could we get a booster?

[Blue_true]

12. How does that strategy deal with people who are not getting vaccinated?

The issue is those people, please don’t make it about vaccines.

It is time to drop the hammer on people that refuse to get vaccinated for no good reason (some people have legitimate medical reasons, but that number is small). Do like Macron in France or like The Houston Methodist Hospital did, take non-civil rights activities away from them, and in the case of a private employer, give them an ultimatum to get fully vaccinated and a date to have that done - if they don’t comply, fire their asses.

[TheBlackAdder]

15. I saw there was a British Health report that just being vaccinated, Delta better controlled.

.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1001354/Variants_of_Concern_VOC_Technical_Briefing_17.pdf



Page 38: Monitoring of vaccine effectiveness

Analysis of routine testing data up to the 11 June 2021, linked to sequencing and S-gene target status has been used to estimate vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease using a test negative case control design.Methods and detailed results are available in Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against the Delta variant. After a single dose there was an14% absolute reduction in vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease with Delta compared to Alpha,and a smaller 10% reduction ineffectiveness after 2 doses (Table 8).

Page 39 continues with further clarification that hospitalizations are reduced.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.22.21257658v1

Conclusions After 2 doses of either vaccine there were only modest differences in vaccine effectiveness with the B.1.617.2 variant. Absolute differences in vaccine effectiveness were more marked with dose 1. This would support maximising vaccine uptake with two doses among vulnerable groups.

.

[Hoyt]

2. Hope scientists from USA have something to say soon, good or bad.

If we need a booster or new formulation, or to go back to masks, then let’s do it, even if some scientists have to admit it should be, “trust the science, . . . . . . but watch for updates.”

[LisaL]

5. I think booster would help.

Pfizer said antibodies increased 5-10 fold after the third dose -but both CDC and FDA claim we don't need boosters at this time.

[AZ8theist]

4. It will all disappear now that the warm weather is here.....

(do I really need to add the sarcasm emoji here?)

[UTUSN]

6. I want to hear everything. I got the Pfizer.

[LisaL]

7. Very unlikely other vaccines would do better than Pfizer.

Pfizer is less efficient against infection by delta. But it's still highly protective against death and hospitalization.

[UTUSN]

8. Getting whiplash!1

[uponit7771]

9. +1, which is my understanding of expectations that it would protect against death and hospitalizatio

... and wasn't an inoculation against the virus.

[Ms. Toad]

18. That is what was tested, largely to get approval more quicky.

No one intentionally designs a vaccine with the goal of leaving the vaccine circulating so that asymptomatic people continue to spread it.

Once they fully tested it - after it was in use for a while and additional tests were done which included regular tests for both the placebo and the vaccinated group regardless of symptoms, the effectiveness in preventing disease was virtually identicial to the effectiveness in preventing death and hospitalization. So once a vaccinated person contracts COVID, the reduction in death is virtually identical to the reduction in infection - so it is protecting against death and hospitalization by preventing infection.

[womanofthehills]

10. Robert Malone, the inventor of MRNA said

Moderna has way more spike proteins in it’s vaccine than Pfizer. I don’t know if that makes a difference. Anyway, Washington Post reports Israel is about to start giving Delta boosters to the severely immune comprised and Pfizer met on Monday with US health officials about this matter.

[LisaL]

11. So far there is no data to suggest Moderna would be any better against delta than Pfizer.

NT

[Ms. Toad]

19. It does have about 3 times the spike proteins

But they are the same ones - not a different mix of spike proteins. One of the reason I chose Pfizer over Moderna was that it only required 1/3 as much mRNA to create the same level of immunity. That reduction in quantity is one of the reasons that a higher percentage of Moderna recipients have side effects.

It doesn't make any difference against differet variants.

[PortTack]

14. The study out of Israel is just that, one study. Other studies had Pfizer efficacy against the delta

Variant as high as 84%.

See the link there are other similar to this one

while studies on the efficacy of vaccines against the Delta variant are limited, one recent study indicated that the Pfizer treatment is 84% effective against the variant after two doses, but only 34% effective after a single dose.

More at the link

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/delta-variant-what-we-know-about-the-efficacy-of-covid-vaccines/2427527/

[GoodRaisin]

16. I read the article twice and didn't see any evidence presented that

support's it's headline.

Was the 855 all supposed to be people who had the Pfizer vaccine?

[LisaL]

22. 855 are the new infections that Israel had on Friday.

Vaccinated and un-vaccinated.

[BGBD]

17. Not really that scary

When you look at how high vaccination rates I'm Israel are and how low the new infections and especially death rates in Israel are.

When most people are vaccinated there's a good chance hospitalizations will skew toward vaccinated people, especially is the most at risk are among that vaccinated population. Delta has been circulating in israel for weeks if not months and infections are nowhere near other wave peaks. The vaccine is working.

[MineralMan]

20. The word "significantly" means different things to different people.

For scientific folks, it only means that something exceeds the statistical margin of error, so it is significant for that. For media people and most other people, if often means that something is widespread and important. The reality, though, when it comes to COVID, is that "significant" has the scientific or statistical meaning. It doesn't mean that those who are fully vaccinated need to be deathly afraid that they will catch the disease soon.

The vaccines still provide strong protection against serious illness from COVID-19.

Language matters. When it is used indiscriminately, it can create unnecessary fear in people, as in this case.

[Hortensis]

21. "language matters" True x1000. Know what the words MEAN. nt

[MineralMan]

23. Yes, but most people do not think about alternate word meanings.

They see "significantly" and understand it from a lay person's perspective. The media knows that, and uses it because it makes headlines seem more important than they really are.

It's frustrating!

[LisaL]

24. In this case it clearly means widespread.

Israel already reported Pfizer was only 64% effective against infections by delta.

[MineralMan]

25. That is based on a single study.

A study we haven't seen, but that the media is reporting on.

Question everything you see in the media. That's my advice.

[LisaL]

26. Oh I do.

But I find that totally believable. Pfizer was designed and tested against original covid, not delta.
Delta is much more infectious than original covid.
It's not surprising that it can break through the vaccines.

[triron]

31. Well said.

[Yavin4]

29. Too many people expected the vaccines to wipe out the virus entirely, but that was never the case.

The vaccines are meant to lessen the likelihood of severe negative outcomes (serious illness, hospitalizations, and deaths) after being tested positive. It was never meant to be zero covid positive cases. That may never happen.

The vaccines have been more effective than we have hoped. Cases here in the U.S. are up, but not nearly to the level that they were back in January. Hospitalizations, ICU beds, and deaths are all down significantly from January.

Covid zero is simply not possible. S. Korea, Australia, and New Zealand all imposed strict measures like mandatory masking, quarantines, and limits to travelers coming from abroad. Yet, they did not aggressively pursue vaccinations. Today, all three countries are dealing with spikes.

[LisaL]

30. Well, we are in the middle of the summer.

We probably shouldn't expect cases to be back to January levels until fall/winter.
We stopped nearly all prevention measures.
We opened everything up.
We are the opposite of countries like Australia, we put all our hope on vaccines-but a lot of people here won't vaccinate, and vaccines aren't perfect.

[Yavin4]

32. Australia locks people in their homes.

They can only go out for 2 hours of exercise or to get essentials. If they catch you out of your home, you will be arrested.

They're doing what most people here on DU want the U.S. to do, but it's not a long term, practical solution.

[LisaL]

33. Which is why I said we are opposite of Australia.

We opened everything up as if covid was no longer a thing.

[Pobeka]

34. FL (and 7 other states) will be at January levels in 2 weeks.

Based on the growth rates I'm seeing, unless something changes fast.
I fully expect that ND, SD and ID will surge too, they'll just be a little delayed.

Even if 100% of the eligible population started getting vaccinated, there isn't enough time to alter it much because it takes too long to get immunity levels up.

Masking and social distancing once again if implemented instantly could save the most lives, and prevent the most long term illness, but, this is the USA.