Pfizer vaccine shows High Covid protection

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine appears to give high protection against asymptomatic Covid-19, according to data from Israel – a finding that will boost hopes that mass vaccination can stop the spread of the virus.

The top line of the real-world results, issued by the Israeli ministry of health and the companies but not yet peer-reviewed by scientists, is efficacy of 97% against disease and death and 94% against infection without symptoms.

Israel is the first country to have vaccinated more than half its population, which it has done with the collaboration of Pfizer/BioNTech and an agreement to monitor the results. As of Wednesday, about 55% of its 9 million population had been given at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine, according to health ministry data, and 43% had received a second dose, which in Israel takes place three weeks after the first.

Last month a paper from Israel’s largest health provider, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, said the vaccine appeared to have 94% efficacy against symptomatic illness and 92% against severe disease.

The companies declined to release the finer details of the results, on the grounds that they will be published in a peer-reviewed journal in due course. But Pfizer said the data confirmed the 95% efficacy it had found in its phase 3 trials of the vaccine, called BNT162b2, and pointed to the role the vaccine could play in stopping the virus spreading.

“The findings which suggest that the vaccine may also provide protection against asymptomatic Sars-CoV-2 infections are particularly meaningful as we look to disrupt the spread of the virus around the globe,” said Luis Jodar, the chief medical officer at Pfizer Vaccines.