Highly Vaccinated Israel Seeing Dramatic Surge In New Covid Cases, Here's Why: NPR

- NPR, Aug. 20, 2021. - Ed.

Israel was the first country on Earth to fully vaccinate a majority of its citizens against COVID-19. Now it has one of the world's highest daily infection rates — an average of nearly 7,500 confirmed cases a day, double what it was 2 weeks ago. Nearly one in every 150 people in Israel today has the virus. What happened, and what can be learned about the vaccine's impact on a highly vaccinated country? Here are 6 lessons learned — and one looming question for the future of the pandemic.

1. Immunity from the vaccine dips over time. Israel had fully vaccinated slightly over half its population by March 25. Infections waned, venues reopened to the vaccinated and the prime minister told Israelis to go out and have fun. By June, all restrictions, including indoor masking, were abolished.
But Israel paid a price for the early rollout. Health officials, and then Pfizer, said their data showed a dip in the vaccine's protection around 6 months after receiving the second shot.

2. The delta variant broke through the vaccine's waning protection. It was a perfect storm: The vaccine's waning protection came around the same time the more infectious delta variant arrived in Israel this summer. Delta accounts for nearly all infections in Israel today. "The most influential event was so many people who went abroad in the summer- vacations- and brought the delta variant very, very quickly to Israel," said Siegal Sadetzki, a former public health director in Israel's Health Ministry.

3. If you get infected, being vaccinated helps. The good news is that among Israel's serious infections on Thurs. of this week, the rate of serious cases among unvaccinated people over 60 (178.7 per 100,000) was 9 times more than the rate among fully vaccinated people of the same age category. And the rate of serious cases among unvaccinated people in the under- 60 crowd (3.2 per 100,000) was a little more than double the rate among vaccinated people in that age bracket.
The bad news is that half of Israel's seriously ill patients who are currently hospitalized were fully vaccinated at least 5 months ago. Most of them are over 60 and have comorbidities.

The seriously ill patients who are unvaccinated are mostly young, healthy people whose condition deteriorated quickly...

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https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/20/1029628471/highly-vaccinated-israel-is-seeing-a-dramatic-surge-in-new-covid-cases-heres-why