Israel on Monday said the Pfizer vaccine was significantly less effective in preventing infections of the Delta variant but confirmed it remained highly effective in preventing serious illness.
The vaccine’s effectiveness in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease fell to 64 percent since June 6 coinciding with the spread of the Delta variant, the Health Ministry said. During May, before the advent of the Delta spread, that number stood at 94.3 percent.
However, the vaccine was 93 percent effective in June, down from 98.3 percent in May, in preventing hospitalizations and serious cases.
Israel had all but beaten coronavirus in May with confirmed cases dipping lower than a dozen per day, this week tallied more than 360 daily new infections in a 24-hour period. The number of serious cases tripled in the space of a week, from 22 to 70.
More than 80 percent of Israel’s adult population has received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
The country recently reinstated an indoor mask requirement only a week and a half after scrapping the mandate.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett along with Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz instructed the Health Ministry to encourage further research on the necessity for a third vaccine shot against the coronavirus.
On Tuesday, Israel and South Korea signed a mutual vaccine supply agreement that would see the transfer of approximately 700,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to Seoul for the vaccination of its citizens by the end of July.
In exchange, South Korea will return the same quantity of vaccines to Israel from a future order in September or October.
“We are continuing to protect the health of the citizens of Israel. The vaccines are effective and save lives. This is a fact. We have made a win-win deal: South Korea will receive vaccines from our existing stocks and we will receive vaccines from their future shipment. Thus we are plugging the holes and we will ensure that the State of Israel has a proper stock of vaccines,” Bennett said.
“I would like to thank Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla, a warm Jew who loves the State of Israel, for the great assistance, and the Health Minister and the people at the Health Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the NSC, who worked around the clock. Together, we will defeat the coronavirus.”
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