The Vaccines Are Working

Photo by Ivan Diaz on Unsplash

We’ve endured a year of uncertainty, of not being able to see and hug our friends, and of alarmist media reports saying we may never hug each other again (I saw one of those yesterday).

But for those who are short on hope, I have some:

The vaccines are working.

They have some drop in efficacy against the new variants, but so far we don’t have a vaccine-escape variant.

So, how do we know they are working, even as Europe faces a massive surge?

Let’s Take a Trip to Israel

Israel has become the world leader in COVID vaccination (I’m not going to touch the politics of some of the stuff going on there).

But essentially, the country, with a population of about 8.7 million (about the same as New Jersey), has become an oversized clinical trial for the rest of the world. Using primarily the Pfizer vaccine so results are controlled, Israel has tested how well the vaccines work on their population.

And the numbers coming in look not just good, but fantastic. Here’s some facts and figures (mostly sourced from the Times of Israel).

• Test positivity rate is now below 2%.
• Serious COVID caseshave dropped below 600 for the first time in two months.