By Feb 7, 2021, Israel had administered over 5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine which covered 60% of its population. Israel has a population 9.3 million people.
The US might get to the current Israel vaccination level around May-June. Israel still had a spike in cases in February. Israel was targeting the vaccination of 90 percent of Israelis over the age of 50 by mid-February. Over two weeks ago, 60 percent of Israel’s population has received at least one shot, which confers partial immunity, and slightly more than half have received the second shot for full vaccination.
The US currently has vaccinated 14% of the population with one shot and 6% have had their second shot. The US is vaccinating 1.5 million each day and will reach 3 million per day in April. The US should have 100 million vaccinated with their first shot by the end of March and maybe 180 million by the end of April.
Israel saw a drop in COVID deaths in old people but the UK variant of virus increased the spread of the disease. More younger people are getting hospitalized with COVID. Israel’s COVID wards remain at capacity with ever-younger COVID patients.
SOURCES- NY Mag, Worldometers
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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You all were correct. I was mistaken. sorry about that.
You all were correct. I was mistaken. sorry about that.
You just assuming all kids with certain comorbidities could die if infected, that's not a logical argument, look at the data of kids deaths… Even with such conditions most of them have a normal immune system, not frail like old people in nursing homes. The vaccine shouldn't be given to anyone below 40 but on rare occasions, fertility tests were not made…
That's the general argument for taking vaccines (in general), this vaccine is experimental, not proven to be safe and the statically a healthy person who gets infected either doesn't develop covid-19 (the disease) or gets moderate symptoms. Vaccines don't stop transmission either, they might reduce it but no independent studies were made, nor will be made so soon, conflicts of interest are always present. The only argument in favor is that you will probably need a vaccine passport to do anything.
cloth masks are not effective in preventing virus transmission they are effective in creating fear and intolerance.
You can still get the disease after the two shots; one shot does conferee immunity but with lower efficacy in preventing disease; at least some of the vaccine companies just designed the vaccine as a treatment, they were not designed to prevent or stop transmission or infection, it just happens that less symptoms = less transmission in some cases. Asymptomatic transmission, presymptomatic and symptomatic transmission will always occur, and combine that with the possibility of virus recombination and new variants that bypass the immunization of vaccines and you have the answer for what is to come in the next months/years. This is the new normal.
That 75% is just an estimate. Even if R<1 the daily infected will drop daily but it won't stop for a while.
The R value drops as larger and larger percentage of the population becomes immune. The bitch virus is so contagious that one person in a large room can infect most of those who are not immune. You can tell if R < 1 because the number of daily infected drops. And you can tell if R>1 because the number of daily infected rises.
While that is true, young children gather is large groups inside unventilated rooms for hours daily. And they don't understand what social distancing means. It makes up for the fact they shed less virus than adults.
What is the downside here nbfdmd?
Best and clearest explanation I've seen. Good work.
All vaccines leave you with some chance of being infected. It's just a combination of
This idea that a "real vaccine" works 100% seems to be floating around. As far as I can tell this is because some people were given the oversimplified children's version of "Why do I have to be stabbed with a Needle, Mummy?"
when they were 5 years old (as was appropriate) and never thought any more about it until now.
Don't compare the details you get as an adult with the story you remember from your childhood. That's guaranteed to make the adult situation look bad.
Surely the R value will drop as you vaccinate, and once it's low enough you'll have achieved herd immunity.
You won't have steady high R until one day it falls by a factor of 10.
Israel has large groups of people who have refused to follow rules around social distancing, mask wearing and similar. The positive vaccine effects are initially being somewhat offset by increased transmission from the new variants. The vaccine will win as long as it’s taken by enough people, but it’s not going to stop the virus circulating. It’s with us like flu now and the vaccine is primarily there to prevent serious illness, death, and swamping hospitals.
I read the sputnik vaccine is giving good results. I'd like to see a comparison with other covid vaccines.
Presumably, Israel has lots of travel to and from western developed nations, perhaps more in proportion to it's national population than any other country.
It takes at least three weeks for the vaccine to start working. I expect to see further reduction in infections during March.
The virus will keep spreading until herd immunity is achieved. When Israel gets to a 75% immunization rate then we should see the R values go down. If they don't that might mean a higher rate is needed, i.e. 80%, 90% etc. No one knows what the rate needs to be.
Yes, I think what I was trying to say is that once you are vaccinated you wont get sick, but you can still potentially carry the virus and perhaps even spread it to others.
Actually no, the R values won't drop until you reach herd immunity. The virus can still spread even as more people get vaccinated. That's why the concept of herd immunity is so relevant. Until you get there you can expect the disease to keep spreading.
Nothing is 100% but it makes you safer to be around.
1.There is virtually no downside. 2.Confidence is not a preventative or a cure. 3.Fear is not a cause of infection.
There are some kids with conditions that make them vulnerable. It is not a large number, but they are at risk. A little over 5% of kids with comorbidities could die if infected. And there are perfectly healthy kids, from all appearances, that can die: 0.2%. I think those are mostly as a result of a handful of mutations that reduce or eliminate type I interferon production.
We would have to do a genetic screening of everyone in America to find those with these mutations (or just those that get hospitalized if we can get results quickly). I am guessing that we will need to give the kids with these mutations monocolonial antibodies. I doubt vaccination will be sufficient.
sickle cell disease is one of the comorbidities that can make kids vulnerable. Obesity also can. And lots of other conditions/diseases.
I hope that 0.2% is a very high estimate of people with these mutations. If not, that is 660,000 Americans. They found these mutations in the kids, but presumably, they are also found in adults, unless they have been the ones dying of flu or whatever and no one caught on.
"It says nothing of how effective these antibodies are at preventing or decreasing the severity of covid." They do look at this in second and especially third phase testing of the vaccines.
Not true. What is compared is the number of people that don't get since when vaccinated, don't get seriously ill and don't die, compared to not vaccinated people at the same time and area.
Nope.
According to the pro-vaxxers (who are surprisingly eager to downplay the effectiveness of the vaccines, which I find odd), getting a vaccine does not make me safe for others to be around. Do you get my point yet?
Young children – under 11 – are less likely to get sick and even if they do, they are not spreading – shedding – the virus to the same extent as adults.
Let's be honest, the reason he needs to wear a mask is because we want the rules about mask wearing to be simple and enforceable.
If you walk into a place of business and everyone is wearing a mask, you can feel safe, and it is reasonable for the proprietor to ask anyone new walking in to mask up. Invisible social pressure will mean that the proprietor rarely has to do so.
If some people are exceptions, it is not clear whether they had a vaccine or not, and it becomes difficult to enforce a rule on only the non-vaccinated.
Because you can get it in a mild case and give it to someone it will kill. That is the answer for those who care about others instead of just themselves anyway, not sure by the tone of your post if that applies in this case.
The "R" value should decrease and the daily infections should dropped. That doesn't seem to be happening much. With vaccination and COVID infections Israel should be near "Herd Immunity". Maybe COVID is finding fertile ground in subgroups or in new locations.
Young children won't be getting vaccinated anytime soon. Vaccine trials have not been done.
If the vaccinated people were randomly distributed in the population I would expect the daily infected numbers to fall a bit steeper. I suspect that there are population subgroups that are resistant to getting vaccinated.
Israel will tell us how successful vaccination will be. We will know in another two months.
That will have to change, if you are shaving more than 15% of the population that can get immunize and probably 40% of the rest will not immunize anyway, you are not going to reach herd immunity.
Viruses and Bacteria don't care if you fear them or not. Plenty of those that died from the plague, HIV, ebola, smallpox, etc. had perfectly good immune systems prior to encountering those agents. The point of a good immune system is that you don't develop immunity to an infectious agent until have had some exposure. The problem is that the exposure may spread through your system and cause death before your immune system has had a chance to work through its process of manufactoring effective antibodies. The point of a vaccine is that you get that exposure to the infectious agent , but in a benign manner.
Ok explain this.
I have a good immune system and I don't fear covid at all. Give me one reason why I should get vaccinated.
The infection and fatality rate have come down but it really doesn't look like the numbers have come down anywhere near as much as they should have if 35% of the population is now fully vaccinated. I believe they prioritized the elderly and as we know the fatality rate skews very heavily to the elderly. Compare Israeli's numbers to the US and you see the problem. The US has made far less progress with vaccinations but the numbers have come down by a similar or even larger percentage than Israelis'. I'm numerically challenged but something doesn't look right to me.
The vaccine is effective against the original strain it was designed for. But there are new variants circulating, more infectious and possibly more deadly. Don't give the new strains a foothold and protect yourself.
The reason new variants are circulating is idiots won't wear masks, and politicians won't make strong enough rules. That leads to more cases, which allows more mutations. The only way we will ever get ahead of this virus is to stop the spread.
If you have “immunity”,
If you’re totally “immune”,
Then the shot would truly be a vaccine.
Not sure they’re counting kids in the vaccination totals, only the people over a certain age?
This is not true:
"More younger people are getting hospitalized with COVID. Israel’s COVID wards remain at capacity with ever-younger COVID patients"
Three weeks after the first vaccination you get some protection against severe Covid, (no hospitalisation and death), but best possible protection works as you describe. I think the US should do as the UK does, and give the first shot to as many people as possible and give the second shot only 3 months later. We can tolerate mild or moderate illness, but we don't want to end up in hospital and on a ventilator.
No immunization for kids below 16 because the vaccines weren't tested on kids because kids really don't die due to covid. Gramps and Granny on the other hand…
You have your immunity two weeks after dose 2.
For the time being people should wear masks just to socially remind other people to wear masks. At some point in time around May I think people will stop wearing masks (or at least want to because cases are so low). Its a silly thing to wear the mask once you are immunized but it does help to remind people who aren't that they should still take basic precautions (washing hands, etc).
Even with 95% vaccination success you still have a 5% chance of catching covid, so when 100 million people are vaccinated that means 5 million could catch the virus. That's a small percentage of a big number- nothing to scoff at.
BUT once you are vaccinated the severity of your cold is reduced because your immune system responds much more quickly to the virus. Lower mortality, less complications is a good thing.
So those would be the points. One day we will all have a big bonfire fueled by our cloth masks.
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I think you mean that Rhino-bro won't get sick, he'll still get infected.
And it appears to significantly reduce the chances of infection too.
The vaccine is effective at preventing your brother from getting the virus, however scientists don't know if he can still spread the disease. In other words, even if he doesn't get infected he may still be capable of infecting people who aren't vaccinated. Scientists are still studying this aspect and simply don't know whether immunized folks can still infect others.
This tells me that the vaccine is largely ineffective.
My brother got the second dose last week and they told him he still needs to wear a mask, social distance, and all that.
Then what's the point?
The picture is more complex. Cases have come down and stabilized when Israel has come out of a closure. The R factor has climbed up but it is still below one. It will be interesting to follow if the number of infections will start rising with currently 1/3 of the population fully immunized, 50% received one dose, less restrictions and the British variant already 90% dominant. My bet is that they will start rising soon. No immunization will take place for children below 16 for now, and that is a significant portion of the population in Israel.
"By Feb 7, 2021, Israel had administered over 5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine which covered 60% of its population. Israel has a population 9.3 million people."
Actually, 5 million Pfizer doses would only be sufficient to immunize 2.5 million people, not 60% of the population. It takes two doses to immunize and you can still get the disease after receiving the first dose.
"Over two weeks ago ….. and slightly more than half have received the second shot for full vaccination."
Israel would need over 9 million doses to immunize half the population. Haretz reported today (25 Feb) that 49.9 percent of Israel's population have been vaccinated with first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, while 35.1 percent have received second jab. Still too low to achieve herd immunity.
Thus, it's not unrealistic for people to get the virus despite the large numbers of people who have been immunized. Again depending on who you talk to, at least 75% of the population would have to be immunized before you could reasonably expect the disease to stop spreading.