Israel Finds Pfizer Vaccine Is Highly Effective at Preventing Asymptomatic COVID-19 Infection

Pfizer and BioNTech announced yesterday that their vaccine was 94 percent effective in preventing asymptomatic COVID-19 infection, based on real-world data from Israel, indicating it could greatly reduce transmission from person to person.

The new findings from Israel’s Ministry of Health also show that the vaccine is 97 percent effective in preventing symptomatic disease, severe disease and death — a real-world confirmation of the 95 percent efficacy demonstrated in the companies’ phase 3 study that supported regulatory approvals worldwide.

The ministry’s analysis, collected from public health data from Jan. 17 to March 6, also found the vaccine to be effective against the SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.7 first identified in Great Britain. More than 80 percent of tested coronavirus specimens were for B.1.1.7. The analysis did not include the variant first identified in South Africa, B.1.351, because there were too few cases.

To date, Israel has vaccinated 71 percent of its population of 6.4 million, making it a useful, early source of real-world vaccine data. ― Jason Scott