Pfizer vs. Delta
How well does the Pfizer vaccine hold up against the dreaded Delta variant of Covid? A new study from Israel sheds some light, with both good news and bad news.
Delta, Delta, Delta. It will soon be the predominant Covid variant in the states, and because it’s far more transmissible than other variants, potentially more deadly, and most importantly, the Pfizer vaccine is less effective at stopping it, there’s been growing concern about the new variant. Here are the facts.
How does Pfizer stack up to Delta?
Yes, Delta is definitely more contagious than the early Covid variants, and it’s also way more contagious than the recent variants, which themselves are more contagious than earlier ones. So that’s the first problem.
Second, there is some evidence that Delta is more deadly. But it’s not yet a fact.
But the big concern of late is how well the Pfizer vaccine protects against Delta. And a new study out of Israel suggests it still protects us, but somewhat less. Now, Israel is interesting because they vaccinated a lot of people early. So there’s been ample time to see how well the vaccine(s) works.
What they found was that while Pfizer does protect against infection and severe disease associated with the Delta variant, it does so less effectively than with previous variants. You’ll recall that the Pfizer vaccine was around 95% effective at preventing infection, hospitalization and serious illness. Now, with Delta in Israel, Pfizer’s effectiveness at stopping symptomatic illness overall (even mild cases) is down to 64% (there’s varying data from 60% to 80%). And the vaccine’s effectiveness at preventing hospitalization and serious illness is down to 93% from almost perfect. So it’s still very good, just less than it was.
Author John Pavlovitz wrote today about how his entire family of four just came down with Covid, even though three of them were fully vaccinated with Pfizer (one child was too young to get the vaccine). The unvaccinated youngest had mild symptoms, as did his vaccinated wife. Their second child is positive, but asymptomatic. He, however, is having some pretty serious flu symptoms — fever, aches, chest congestion — but nothing requiring hospitalization at this point.
If the worst that Delta does is cause more of us to have flu symptoms, I can live with that — literally! It’s the danger of Delta, and future variants, undermining the effectiveness of the existing vaccines to the degree that we see an increase in severe illness, hospitalization and even death that worries me. And if we continue having a large portion of our country unvaccianted, and in particular highly-concentrated pockets of the unvaccinated in Red states or in the Black community, then we run the risk of creating new super-variants that might be able to further thwart our vaccines.
Same concern goes for foreign countries in which the overwhelming number of citizens aren’t vaccinated: e.g., India (fully vaccinated 4.7%) or Brazil (fully vaccinated 13%). Actually, there are a LOT of countries that have really poor vaccination rates.
Another thing. Right-wingers on social media are claiming that while the vaccine might look safe today, in two years we’re all going to come down with horrible side effects that will prove it wasn’t worth being vaccinated. So, I did a little research, and guess what — they’re wrong.
Severe side effects from vaccines happen within around 6 weeks of vaccination. For example:
J&J blood clots show up within 6 weeks.
Pfizer myocarditis shows up within 4 days.
Polio vaccine paralysis, 1-4 weeks.
Yellow fever brain swelling, 2-3 weeks.
MMR severe side effects, 1-3 weeks.
H1N1 Swine Flu severe side effects, 7 weeks.
No one is having a surprise side effect two years after getting the vaccine. And considering Pfizer has been approved since December 11, 2020, and people have been getting the vaccine for seven months, there aren’t going to be any additional statistically-significant side effects that we don’t already know about.
PS That list above also shows you that every vaccine — and every medical procedure, for that matter — carries some risk. That doesn’t mean they’re not generally considered safe, and worth the risk.
In other news
Today is the 6-month anniversary of the Insurrection.
It’s the Carters’ 75th Wedding Anniversary!
Trump is still pathetic
RFK, jr. is a jerk
And this totally made me chuckle
That’s it for today. We also delve into the Delta discussion some more in today’s podcast, in addition to discussing the Insurrection anniversary. You can have a listen here.
Thanks, JOHN
