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Last Friday, I reported that Israel’s Maccabi HMO said they were seeing about 60% efficacy for older Pfizer vaccine recipients 21 days after their first dose (compared to another Israeli HMO, Clalit, reporting 33% efficacy between 14 and 17 days after the first dose). Now Maccabi reports 92% efficacy 7+ days after the second dose (usually 28+ days after first dose) in a big sample size.
Pfizer claimed 95% efficacy in its clinical trial, but real world efficacy sometimes doesn’t live up to clinical trials. So 92% in the early stage after the second dose is pretty good.
From The Times of Israel:
‘VERY, VERY GOOD NEWS,’ IN THE FIRST SUCH STUDY IN THE WORLD
Vaccine found 92% effective in Israel, in first controlled result outside trialsOnly 31 out of 163,000 fully vaccinated Maccabi members caught virus, indicating Pfizer shots living up to expectations; expert: Results ‘well within expected standard deviation’
By NATHAN JEFFAY
Today, 1:56 pm 15Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is showing 92 percent effectiveness in Israel, according to the world’s first big controlled investigation on how it works outside of clinical tests.
Only 31 out of 163,000 Israelis vaccinated by Maccabi Healthcare Services were diagnosed with COVID-19 in their first 10 days of full-strength protection, its top vaccine statistics analyst, Anat Ekka Zohar, told The Times of Israel on Thursday.
Maccabi found that an equivalent sample of unvaccinated Israelis was 11 times more likely to be diagnosed with the coronavirus, which allowed it to calculate the effectiveness rate.
“This is very, very good news,” Ekka Zohar said. “It is the first study in the world that looks at such a large number of fully vaccinated patients.”
Pfizer achieved 95% efficacy in clinical trials, and doctors worldwide are looking to Israel with bated breath to see whether the vaccine comes close to that figure in real-world use.
Maccabi figures released earlier this week indicated that vaccination is working very well, but lacked a control group that made it hard to extract an accurate effectiveness rate.
Now, Maccabi has analyzed a control group of Israelis with similar age and health profiles of vaccinees, composed entirely of people haven’t been infected or received shots.
This allowed Maccabi to calculate its real-world effectiveness rate. It used complex calculations, similar to those used by Pfizer in trials, to compare vaccines and the control group and determine the extent to which the vaccine appears to be preventing infection.
“This is very exciting,” said Ekka Zohar. “It’s a very high level of effectiveness and we are seeing a very low percentage of coronavirus among the patients who have taken both shots.”
Full protection is believed to kick in a week after the second shot, so Maccabi’s data covers all of its members who are between seven and 16 days after receiving it.
Israel’s vaccination program has been so extensive, with them giving out doses equal in number to half the population of Israel (but not of the Occupied Territories),
that next week we ought to be able to see clear impacts on the total national numbers, such as a falloff in the share of cases and perhaps hospitalizations among Israel’s older population. Quasi-experiments like Maccabi’s with control groups are great, but eventually the efficacy of Israeli-scale vaccinations will have to show up at the national scale or something unknown is very wrong.
New cases in Israel have been mostly falling over the last week, but then they are falling in lots of other places as well, such as California, where vaccinations have been running at a rate an order of magnitude less than in Israel.
Still, we ought to be seeing easily detectable macro-scale effects out of Israel by next week.
What about the variants in the UK, South Africa, and Brazil?
Hey, guys.
Take melatonin!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/this-common-supplement-used-for-sleep-may-weaken-covid-symptoms-doctor-says/ar-BB1dbzjx?ocid=msedgntp
Do you guys think combining Melatonin with a B Complex (which includes B6) would be a good idea?
Keep in mind that they are promoting melatonin for people who already have Covid, not as a preventative. The #1 measure you can take against Covid, by far, is to get vaccinated ASAP.Replies: @Aardvark
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vN30emwcNS4
As this video says, there is some research suggesting Vitamin D, but since this video was made, a new study came out that claims to have no evidence that Vitamin D deficiency contributes to ICU admission. However, it's not the final word on the topic, and I am continuing to take it. Little to no downside.
Sleep is probably the most underrated thing that everyone can start doing immediately and for free. Getting adequate sleep every night is really good for you.
OT
Fund Black scientists
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)00011-8
A demand for race based NIH funding in the journal Cell
Figure 1 is something for a prestigious academic journal
Arizona is occupied by Navajo.
Only 92%? Better continue lockdowns!
By the way, Biden said there was nothing we could do over the next few months to alter the pandemic. Another pol/bureaucrat/doctor who ignores the obvious: “get on top of your risk factors” . As I’ve said for several months, stopping the COVID from getting severe and going on with life would be a better solution than shutting down the nation for a year.
What can be done?
Other than age, the biggest risk factors for severity are related to general health–i.e., obesity, blood sugar control, metabolic syndrome.
This January, I’ve been doing the Carnivore Diet. I have basically been eating just steak. Despite not being very strict about the food (sometimes eating a few veggies or snacking on cheese and pork rinds) and continuing to drink about every other day, I have lost about 20 lbs so far, and the month isn’t quite over yet. Plus, my bench press and squat have improved over that time. I haven’t been hungry or had many cravings for other food.
Over 20 lbs in a month. At this rate, in the few months Biden says we can’t affect the pandemic, I can have completely normalized my BMI according to the government guidelines. (Of course, as I am in non-locked-down Japan, I can still go to the gym…)
Take melatonin!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/this-common-supplement-used-for-sleep-may-weaken-covid-symptoms-doctor-says/ar-BB1dbzjx?ocid=msedgntpDo you guys think combining Melatonin with a B Complex (which includes B6) would be a good idea?Replies: @Jack D, @Chrisnonymous
It couldn’t hoit.
Keep in mind that they are promoting melatonin for people who already have Covid, not as a preventative. The #1 measure you can take against Covid, by far, is to get vaccinated ASAP.
Just wait for Jen Pfaki to announce the rollout of the Psizer vaccine!
Celebrate with jumping jacks:
Φ φ Ψ ψ Φ φ Ψ ψ Φ φ Ψ ψ Φ φ
Isnt the pfizer vaccine the one thats supposed to screw up a woman’s fertility? I thought British doctors warned women about that one because of a possible autoimmune reaction attacking her in some area necessary for conception. They were warned not to take multiple shots over a certain time frame. You probably have to search this on yandex and not Bill Vaccine-Gates’ Bing or google because they censor anything they find annoying these days.
Btw……there was a nursing home in New York state that vaccinated 193 old people and 24 of em’ were dead in 2 weeks. Its claimed there is no proof that any of these deaths were vaccine related, but that is a 12% death rate in a 2 week period. Kinda high n’est pas?
Id be nervous, but I just trust the MSM, CDC, fbi, Pelosi&Schumer, Israel, the Bidens, and Bill Gates so much that I cant wait to get injected and all……promise. Where do I get in that conga line?
Take melatonin!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/this-common-supplement-used-for-sleep-may-weaken-covid-symptoms-doctor-says/ar-BB1dbzjx?ocid=msedgntpDo you guys think combining Melatonin with a B Complex (which includes B6) would be a good idea?Replies: @Jack D, @Chrisnonymous
The following video also mentions melatonin and adds it to a list of other supplements and actions you can take.
As this video says, there is some research suggesting Vitamin D, but since this video was made, a new study came out that claims to have no evidence that Vitamin D deficiency contributes to ICU admission. However, it’s not the final word on the topic, and I am continuing to take it. Little to no downside.
Sleep is probably the most underrated thing that everyone can start doing immediately and for free. Getting adequate sleep every night is really good for you.
The number of new cases in the US has already turned downward. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan have really been doing well. Georgia, North Carolina and, now Virginia less so. Rhode Island is still a hot spot. Then there are the poor Navajo. A slow motion genocide taking place amongst them.
3 of the top 5 countries on that list have a name that starts with “United”. By the standards of the Social Sciences that’s a remarkably high correlation.
But the European Union is doing badly and throwing its toys out of the pram in consequence. Clearly the word “Union” doesn’t have the same quasi-magical effect. It’s a mystery.
Btw......there was a nursing home in New York state that vaccinated 193 old people and 24 of em' were dead in 2 weeks. Its claimed there is no proof that any of these deaths were vaccine related, but that is a 12% death rate in a 2 week period. Kinda high n'est pas?
Id be nervous, but I just trust the MSM, CDC, fbi, Pelosi&Schumer, Israel, the Bidens, and Bill Gates so much that I cant wait to get injected and all......promise. Where do I get in that conga line?Replies: @That Would Be Telling, @Kaz
Any spike protein based vaccine has a theoretical issue there, because … it’s using the wild type virus’ spike protein, with a few “molecular twist ties” added to avoid antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). I would say the people making these warnings should have figured out if the latter stabilization hides or leaves exposed the region they’re worried about, but since as far as I know they don’t explain why being vaccinated is uniquely dangerous compared to getting infected by the virus….
Meanwhile, it might do you some good to learn about the concept of risk/benefit tradeoffs….
In N days (N unknown) 31 out of 163,000 got infected. In the control group in the same time period 357 must have gotten infected which is 0.219% out of 163,000.
In last 15 days there were 111,000 new infections in Israel which is 7,400 per day which is 0.082% per day out of 9 million population.
The duration of the period of comparison between two groups was 0.219/0.082≈2.67: N=3 days.
Does it sound right that the interval was that narrow? I find it strange. How did they do it?
The intervals for all subjects did not have to coincide. How did they determine who was in the control group? Was the subject tested and then after the negative result the clock was set to run N days and the subject was tested again? They could assign to every infected subjected in the control group probability 1/N where N could be different for different subjects and then sum it up and multiply by the mean of study duration. This could reduce granularity error in the control group. But that would not be exactly side by side two groups comparison. Is it possible that the number 357 of infected in the control group is overestimated? The number 357 is not actual but synthetic; it was calculated so the presumed time interval N is the same as time interval in the vaccinated group. The source of possible error is in definition of N for each individual subject that got infected because there might be an unknown offset. The actual N might be larger and thus the 357 number could be too high.
In last 15 days there were 111,000 new infections in Israel which is 7,400 per day which is 0.082% per day out of 9 million population.
The duration of the period of comparison between two groups was 0.219/0.082≈2.67: N=3 days.
Does it sound right that the interval was that narrow? I find it strange. How did they do it?
The intervals for all subjects did not have to coincide. How did they determine who was in the control group? Was the subject tested and then after the negative result the clock was set to run N days and the subject was tested again? They could assign to every infected subjected in the control group probability 1/N where N could be different for different subjects and then sum it up and multiply by the mean of study duration. This could reduce granularity error in the control group. But that would not be exactly side by side two groups comparison. Is it possible that the number 357 of infected in the control group is overestimated? The number 357 is not actual but synthetic; it was calculated so the presumed time interval N is the same as time interval in the vaccinated group. The source of possible error is in definition of N for each individual subject that got infected because there might be an unknown offset. The actual N might be larger and thus the 357 number could be too high.Replies: @Steve Sailer
They don’t necessarily have a placebo group equal in size to vaccinated group, they have everybody who wasn’t vaccinated.
They started first dose vaccinations in Israel on either 12/19 or 12/20. Today is 1/28. Second doses are three weeks after first doses. They ramped up very fast near the end of December, so there weren’t too many yet who are 10 days out from the their second dose.
Btw......there was a nursing home in New York state that vaccinated 193 old people and 24 of em' were dead in 2 weeks. Its claimed there is no proof that any of these deaths were vaccine related, but that is a 12% death rate in a 2 week period. Kinda high n'est pas?
Id be nervous, but I just trust the MSM, CDC, fbi, Pelosi&Schumer, Israel, the Bidens, and Bill Gates so much that I cant wait to get injected and all......promise. Where do I get in that conga line?Replies: @That Would Be Telling, @Kaz
They’re essentially vaccinating people already on their deathbeds. What a waste but that’s how the prioritizations work.
“They don’t necessarily have a placebo group equal in size to vaccinated group, they have everybody who wasn’t vaccinated.” – Yes, but whatever the size of the placebo group was the infection rate must have been 0.219% in the same time period as the vaccinated group accumulated 31/163,000 (0.019%) infection rate. To accumulate to 0.219% infection rate in the 2nd half of January it took only 3 days.
The problem still stands, I think. How long was the time period from the time vaccine getting effective to the time the last person out of 31 getting infected? If it was longer than 3 days than the infection rate in the placebo group would be larger than 0.219% meaning higher than 92% vaccine efficacy. Say, for N=30 days the infection rate in the placebo group would have to be 10 times lower than what it is in Israel.
Perhaps the infection rate in Israel (111,000 case in last 15 days) that I used is not the same as being “diagnosed with Covid-19” in this study.
Vaccine study protocols had different definitions of being “diagnosed with Covid-19”.
It is possible that the daily infection rate in Israel congruent with the “diagnosed with Covid-19” definition of Pfizer is significantly lower (factor of 5 or 10) than 0.082% that I have used. If so then in the placebo group there were 5-10 times more asymptomatic cases that would test positive.
Next question: how many of the vaccinated tested positive that were not included in the 31 group?
Here’s some further data for Israel, which may or may not be compatible with what’s reported above:
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israel-shows-promising-results-from-pfizer-vaccination-campaign-657051
In this article, Maccabi reports that 66 (of 248,000) got Covid a week or later after their second dose. I suppose that the increase of numbers may reflect a greater length of average time after the second dose for the group.
Steve, considering all the space you’ve devoted lately to Israel, maybe you should open a bureau in Tel Aviv.
Also, you would get vaccinated faster than in Patrick Bateman landReplies: @International Jew
Steve, considering all the space you’ve devoted lately to Israel, maybe you should open a bureau in Tel Aviv.
Also, you would get vaccinated faster than in Patrick Bateman land
For the record, the “occupied territories” have their own governments which, under treaty with Israel, are responsible for their own health care. And it’s not like they don’t have access to funding. That Israel is trying to help regardless is remarkable, but logical.
Keep in mind that they are promoting melatonin for people who already have Covid, not as a preventative. The #1 measure you can take against Covid, by far, is to get vaccinated ASAP.Replies: @Aardvark
The problem is finding an actual vaccine by the definition of “contains an attenuated copy of the virus or dead copies of the virus”. The Pfizer and Moderna products are experimental gene injections.
mRNA is not "genes" but these vaccines are experimental and authorized under Emergency Use Authorization. As such, they are probably more risky than other vaccines that have been thru the normal FDA approval process (which might take up to 10 years) but , IMHO, less risky than getting Covid. Your choice at this point is either an experimental vaccine (there are going to be others soon that are not based on mRNA but will still be EUA rather than fully approved) or else risking Covid. Maybe once you have Covid melatonin or Ivermectin or monoclonal antibodies or something are going to help you survive (or maybe you'll survive without any treatment) but maybe you won't, as millions of people around the earth haven't, whereas so far these vaccines don't appear to have killed anyone.Replies: @Steve Sailer
I’m still not that interested in getting stuck with something that’s going to have my own cells pump out an unlimited number of spike proteins which my immune system will then ostensibly destroy. It kind’a reminds me of dead-pan comic Steven Wright’s account of receiving a humidifier and a de-humidifier as gifts. “…so I put them in the same room and let them fight it out!” Question: if this vaccine mechanism is so hot, why do I need two shots?
Seriously, what's going to get the proteins get any further than the cells that have been hijacked until the immune system does its thing? They are not produced indefinitely unless the mRNA is so fancy its not really RNA (one nutter was insisting this is not only well established technology but part of a sinister plan by "Big Pharma" etc., but refused to cite any sources). The natural cycle of mRNA reduces it to individual nucleotides which then go back to the nucleus to be transcribed into different strands of mRNA.
Then the major histocompatibility complex picks bits and pieces of the protein and presents these "epitopes" on the cell's surface. They're recognized as alien, the adaptive immune system starts learning, and in the end the hijacked cells, which are not large in number to begin with, let alone close in orders of magnitude compares to a real infection, are terminated with extreme prejudice.
You do realize the alternative is the fully "replication competent" wild type virus hijacking many many more of your cells in an uncontrolled fashion with its full set of mRNA, perhaps spreading throughout your body through your bloodstream, and spilling out the spike protein and a whole lot more when cells die because for example too much of their membrane has been stolen to make envelopes for new viruses? There are no safe options.
There are many vaccines that are given in 2 doses. The first one sort of puts your immune system on low alert – a sort of BOLO and the 2nd one is a trigger for your immune system to get really serious about making an arrest of this suspicious character that it has seen before.
OK, it’s not a “real” vaccine if that’s how you define vaccines. The way I would define a vaccine is “it is effective in preventing you from getting the disease” and by that standard the mRNA vaccines seem highly effective.
mRNA is not “genes” but these vaccines are experimental and authorized under Emergency Use Authorization. As such, they are probably more risky than other vaccines that have been thru the normal FDA approval process (which might take up to 10 years) but , IMHO, less risky than getting Covid. Your choice at this point is either an experimental vaccine (there are going to be others soon that are not based on mRNA but will still be EUA rather than fully approved) or else risking Covid. Maybe once you have Covid melatonin or Ivermectin or monoclonal antibodies or something are going to help you survive (or maybe you’ll survive without any treatment) but maybe you won’t, as millions of people around the earth haven’t, whereas so far these vaccines don’t appear to have killed anyone.
Well great! More for us!
Seriously, what’s going to get the proteins get any further than the cells that have been hijacked until the immune system does its thing? They are not produced indefinitely unless the mRNA is so fancy its not really RNA (one nutter was insisting this is not only well established technology but part of a sinister plan by “Big Pharma” etc., but refused to cite any sources). The natural cycle of mRNA reduces it to individual nucleotides which then go back to the nucleus to be transcribed into different strands of mRNA.
Then the major histocompatibility complex picks bits and pieces of the protein and presents these “epitopes” on the cell’s surface. They’re recognized as alien, the adaptive immune system starts learning, and in the end the hijacked cells, which are not large in number to begin with, let alone close in orders of magnitude compares to a real infection, are terminated with extreme prejudice.
You do realize the alternative is the fully “replication competent” wild type virus hijacking many many more of your cells in an uncontrolled fashion with its full set of mRNA, perhaps spreading throughout your body through your bloodstream, and spilling out the spike protein and a whole lot more when cells die because for example too much of their membrane has been stolen to make envelopes for new viruses? There are no safe options.
mRNA is not "genes" but these vaccines are experimental and authorized under Emergency Use Authorization. As such, they are probably more risky than other vaccines that have been thru the normal FDA approval process (which might take up to 10 years) but , IMHO, less risky than getting Covid. Your choice at this point is either an experimental vaccine (there are going to be others soon that are not based on mRNA but will still be EUA rather than fully approved) or else risking Covid. Maybe once you have Covid melatonin or Ivermectin or monoclonal antibodies or something are going to help you survive (or maybe you'll survive without any treatment) but maybe you won't, as millions of people around the earth haven't, whereas so far these vaccines don't appear to have killed anyone.Replies: @Steve Sailer
Never say never. A previously healthy 56 year old doctor in Florida died a few weeks after getting the first dose of the Moderna vaccine of a rare syndrome. I’d say there’s about an 80% chance the vaccine killed him.
I’m sure there are more cases like that out of the 25 million or so Americans who have been vaccinated by now.
Also, you would get vaccinated faster than in Patrick Bateman landReplies: @International Jew
I wasn’t suggesting Steve himself actually decamp to Israel. But it’s remarkable how smoothly terms like Maccabi and Clalit now roll off his tongue. Pretty soon he’ll be saying things like seger and darkon yarok.
Steve wouldn’t like it in Israel. Not many golf courses.
If I'm not mistaken, Steve has in the past,,expressed his admiration for sandy courses like St. Andrews. Perhaps the Negev would yield some great courses? Steve could be the Orde Wingate of Israeli golf course architecture!
Remarkable that Israel seems to have such a huge supply of the vaccine relative to population compared to, say, the US.
Must be because Pfizer is an Israeli company, right?
I mean, no American corporation would prioritize the perceived needs of a foreign country over those of their own people…
Steve wouldn’t like it in Israel. Not many golf courses.
If I’m not mistaken, Steve has in the past,,expressed his admiration for sandy courses like St. Andrews. Perhaps the Negev would yield some great courses? Steve could be the Orde Wingate of Israeli golf course architecture!