The COVID-19 vaccine appears to be reducing the coronavirus pandemic in Israel.
The Israeli Ministry of Health examined the medical records of 743,845 people over age 60 who had been fully vaccinated and found that only 531, less than 1%, tested positive for the vaccine. Only 38 had been hospitalized, and only three had died.
Eran Segal, a scientist at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, posted data on Twitter showing that in the last two weeks, Israel has experienced a nearly 35% drop in COVID-19 cases. In that same time, hospitalizations due to COVID-19 dropped 30%, and those critically ill with the disease fell 20%.
Israel has the highest rate of vaccine distribution per capita in the world. The country has given out almost 55 doses per 100 people. The United Arab Emirates is second, with nearly 34 doses per 100 people, and the United Kingdom is third, with 14 doses per 100 people. The United States comes in at fourth, with nine doses per 100 people. Nearly 7 in 10 Israelis age 60 and up have received a second dose of the vaccine.
But Segal is tentative about what the numbers mean, saying, “Israel: We say with caution, the magic has started.”
Indeed, it is possible that this decline in cases is the result of the nation’s current lockdown, but scientists at the Ministry of Health doubt that. They have found that the biggest drops in infections occurred in those over the age of 60, who were the first to be vaccinated, and in cities that had a higher proportion of their population vaccinated. Similar declines were not seen in earlier lockdowns.
