Lesson to learn from Israel. Pfizer vaccine less effective than announced

[Cormoran]

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/19/single-covid-vaccine-dose-in-israel-less-effective-than-we-hoped

It is known that a single dose doesn't guarantee whole protection, but Israel's numbers are showing that delaying the second dose might be a losing strategy.

So if any of you has received the first dose but not yet the second, keep acting as if you had received none and stay safe.

But this is certainly a possibility if there is an escaped mutant.

Gosh, an escaped mutant. I suppose we really are living in a world where there is an escaped mutant. Quite literally. Welcome to 2021.

I also hate this mass hysteria ‘my dad caught COVID after his jab’ .. we know this is a possibility. It’s not 100.% effective even after two doses! Here’s a story, I’m currently in bed really poorly with flu (blood test confirmed) which I’ve managed to catch in lockdown & having had a flu jab 😭 I’m completing baffled as to where it’s come from. My daughter does go to nursery but she’s not ill at all. Maybe flu can be asymptomatic in kids also?! Other than that, the only place I’ve been in the last couple weeks is once to my local mini co-op for some formula for my baby. I was in there for all of 3 minutes! 🤦🏼‍♀️

Dont get flu, I feel hideous. I had COVID in December & luckily mildly. A breeze compared to this hell 🙈

@tobee

Have we got any evidence that vaccinated people are ignoring the rules? Or is it just another guess?

What proof would you like? Are you on social media?

@MoirasRoses
Yes the popular view that if you have flu you will not be able to leave your bed is actually rubbish and you can get a mild case and you can be asymptomatic. It’s horrible when you do get a proper dose of it though, hope you feel better soon

Hope you are on the mend soon @MoirasRoses .

Interesting that you wonder about flu can be asymptomatic as I was asking myself this too! I don't see why it couldn't be!

Yes I'm on social media. I have not personally seen anyone talk of vaccinated people ignoring rules; not heard back this anecdotally.

However, I have observed newspapers endlessly writing up stories of people breaking lockdown rules and misrepresenting photos of crowded beach fronts etc. Despite official information being that there are generally very high levels of compliance.

I therefore would be interested to know whether people are not be cautious after vaccinated or is it actually just a warning right now @BungleandGeorge

Not heard of this not back this

Prof of Chemistry that was on Newsnight tgis eve did say that effectiveness of one dose was less than previously thought - around 30%.

Need both, and in quick succession!

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

The flu jab is different every year.

@colouringindoors

Prof of Chemistry that was on Newsnight tgis eve did say that effectiveness of one dose was less than previously thought - around 30%.

Need both, and in quick succession!

That’s disappointing but not surprising to me. There were a bunch of people on here insisting it was 70-80% effective after one dose, browbeating the rest of us who relied on Pfizer’s 50% stats (and apparently Pfizer isn’t even attaining those).

Let’s just pray that leaving 12 weeks between Pfizer doses rather than than the 3 they used in trials doesn’t also turn out to be similarly problematic. Just because it works for the AZ vaccine doesn’t mean it makes sense for the Pfizer, it’s very different science.

This whole thing is nonsense. The headline is that people still get infected less than two weeks after their first dose. Yes, that’s because the immunity builds over the first three weeks.

The only interesting quote is

“ Of the 3,199 people who took coronavirus tests between day 22 and day 28 after the first vaccine, 84 were found to be positive (2.6 percent), including 69 people who had already been vaccinated twice.”

This is obviously a very small percentage.

There have also been concerns raised that giving people incomplete protection by delaying the 2nd Pfizer dose could create a vaccine resistant strain. It does seem a bit of a gamble when we know so little.

www.statnews.com/2021/01/04/britain-takes-a-gamble-with-covid-19-vaccines-upping-the-stakes-for-the-rest-of-us/

That’s disappointing but not surprising to me. There were a bunch of people on here insisting it was 70-80% effective after one dose, browbeating the rest of us who relied on Pfizer’s 50% stats (and apparently Pfizer isn’t even attaining those).

That’s a bit disingenuous. The data discussed previously does suggest good immunity after one dose.

Prof of Chemistry that was on Newsnight this eve did say that effectiveness of one dose was less than previously thought - around 30%.

I saw that, but it wasn’t explained and I can’t find a source for it. If this turns out to be the case, then that’s all the more reason for everyone to continue behaving as though they haven’t had the vaccine until they have had the second dose. 30% is still better than 100%, especially if this is also associated with reduction in disease severity as you’d expect.

[quote soundofsilence1]There have also been concerns raised that giving people incomplete protection by delaying the 2nd Pfizer dose could create a vaccine resistant strain. It does seem a bit of a gamble when we know so little.

www.statnews.com/2021/01/04/britain-takes-a-gamble-with-covid-19-vaccines-upping-the-stakes-for-the-rest-of-us/[/quote]
The risk of mutation depends entirely on the number of transmissions.

Vaccine or no vaccine, the risk is currently high because the virus has been poorly controlled. Ideally we’d have continued to have suppressed transmission during December while the roll out began, but we have a scientifically illiterate cloth eared prime minister, so here we are.

Although vaccine escape is a risk, now we have vaccines they are relatively easily tweaked to deal with new strains. And for every article that you google, I can google another that gives a different view. Which only tells us to beware of journalism - it doesn’t give us the truth - which will emerge over the next few months.

www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-is-mutating-but-early-evidence-shows-that-pfizer-vaccine-will-still-work

So if instead of asking “what percentage protection do you have from one dose?” and count all the cases, you ask “how much protection do you have from 12 days after one dose,” the answer is 90%. That is the basis on which JCVI/MHRA have authorised the strategy we are currently pursuing. Protection rises to 95% after the second dose.

The "answer" is NOT 90%. It is so unhelpful that this is constantly being repeated - there is NO evidence that it is 90% after day 21 with one jab only. None.

90% is an extrapolation from available data. Maybe an extremely educated extrapolation, but that is all. It may be completely incorrect and it should not be a surprise if that is so.

The data from Israel and the UK will be the first ACTUAL data on the efficacy of having one jab that goes beyond day 21.

We have to wait and see.

Why would a prof of chemistry know anything about vaccine effectiveness? My degree is chemistry, specialising in organic - but i wouldn't claim to know anything about human biology.

I really do recommend listening to radio 4 - how to vaccinate the world The last two programmes cover all the issues raised in this thread and by people with expertise.

I hate to say it but there are a lot of stupid professors in British universities. A lot of them are experts in their own subject (although not all) but even then they are entirely unqualified to talk about anything outside of their field.

@Em777

It always seemed extremely daft to go against Pfizer’s own recommendations.

Absolutely. Other vaccination regimes haven't been tested. We should be strictly adhering to Pfizer's recommendations

'Hopefully those who were vaccinated will become less unwell though at least'

This!

Haven't we always known transmission is likely to still occur but as others have said it is the hospital admissions, critical illness and death that the vaccine reduces?

Only one response so far, but page should be updated during the day with more (that's what usually happens):
www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-media-reports-of-study-results-from-israel-and-comments-made-by-prof-nachman-ash-israels-coronavirus-tsar-about-the-efficacy-of-a-single-dose-of-the-pfizer-vaccine/

They haven’t tweaked anything. They have just looked at the data

Thank you for this explanation last night, JanetWeiss - however if the PP was correct I still wonder why Pfizer have calculated it one way and the government scientists have chosen another

Since - for obvious reasons - there's been less time to do all the research which might otherwise have happened, surely it would have been better to stick with what the manufacturers said in the first place?
And yes, I know that would have meant fewer being jabbed at all, but since they just seem to be left with "hope" that it'll work I'm not convinced it was the right thing to do

Here is an interview with a virology academic who is well qualified to comment.
On Pfizer and Moderna - From 24 mins in covers changing the schedules from trial. He seems a measured man, not sensationalist. Calls the UK decision to delay to week 12 "extreme", that it may work but it is completely unproven. "A real stretch based on the available data" that it could provide enough protection for long enough. He says that it is a great thing to test a longer length in a clinical trial, but we could be coming to a nightmare scenario where the protection has faded after 3 weeks en masse (30 mins in).

He says immunologicaly it is a reasonable concept that extended wait may work, but stresses again there is no data to support a 12 week period.

He says you are risking losing trust in the vaccines by varying the regimes in the case that the untrialed regimes fail.
At 35 mins he talks about how, from the virus perspective, that a partially immune population can drive virus escape mutations. He says add to this convalescent plasma and it could be even worse for driving escape mutations.

Coronavirus Mutations and COVID 19 Vaccine Implications with Shane Crotty, PhD (SARS CoV 2 Variants)

The "answer" is NOT 90%. It is so unhelpful that this is constantly being repeated - there is NO evidence that it is 90% after day 21 with one jab only. None.

I didn’t say after 21 days, I said after 12 days. Actually it is between 12 and 21 days after innoculation - for which the trial data DOES show a 90% reduction in risk of infection compared to the unvaccinated group.

There is no evidence about what happens to immunity after 21 days if the second dose is not given. I also said that in my previous post.

But we will have it hopefully before too long, from the Zoe app. This is one of things they will be able to tell from their data set.

@PuzzledObserver

The "answer" is NOT 90%. It is so unhelpful that this is constantly being repeated - there is NO evidence that it is 90% after day 21 with one jab only. None.

I didn’t say after 21 days, I said after 12 days. Actually it is between 12 and 21 days after innoculation - for which the trial data DOES show a 90% reduction in risk of infection compared to the unvaccinated group.

There is no evidence about what happens to immunity after 21 days if the second dose is not given. I also said that in my previous post.

But we will have it hopefully before too long, from the Zoe app. This is one of things they will be able to tell from their data set.

Nope, it doesn't say 'after 12 days' either. If someone gets covid on day 22 or day 44 then that is not reflected in the result that you are calling 'after 12 days'. That statement is simply incorrect.

The data between days 12 and 21 are for those exact 9 days. That is all. That is the only point where the data currently leans towards an efficacy of 90%, but without later data and more results it can still be incorrect. It is a line on a graph and one end of it is unknown.

Can you see that?

Now experts can analyse that data and give OPINIONS and DERIVATIONS which is what they have done. Their OPINIONS may be correct or they may not. Their OPINIONS and CONCLUSIONS may have included a calculated risk because of the circumstances and in this particular case it did. They have not hidden this.

However that does not change the data. It does not make the efficacy of having had one dose only become 90%.

The only thing that can change the data is more results, that is more data. This is now happening, and will go on happening for the next many months.

No-one should be surprised if the data changes considerably. More information will allow better vaccination pathways.