People who were among the first to get a Covid vaccine are now vulnerable to infection. The vaccine’s effectiveness wanes and now provides just 16 percent protection in those vaccinated last January.
The decline in the vaccine’s effectiveness is rapid. People vaccinated four months later in April still have a 75 percent protection, says Israel’s Health Ministry.
The country has almost exclusively adopted Pfizer’s experimental mRNA vaccine for its Covid response, which has been one of the most comprehensive and efficient in the West.
But cases have been rising suddenly recently, and scientists fear serious cases requiring hospital treatment could rise threefold in the coming months.
Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem were commissioned to explore the sudden rise in serious cases. “We looked at tens of thousands of people tested in June, alongside data on the time since their second shot, and found that those vaccinated early were more likely to test positive,” said Dr Yotam Shenhar, the lead researcher.
This gradual waning of the vaccine’s effectiveness is exposing the country’s most vulnerable to a serious Covid infection, as they were the first to get the vaccine last January.
(Source: Times of Israel, July 27, 2021)
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