Anti-vaxxers hijacking Israel’s COVID data – here’s why they are wrong

The anti-vaccination cult is celebrating the climb in COVID-19 cases in Israel.

Social media – and even some more mainstream media – in recent weeks has been swarming with claims that Israel’s more than 1,000 daily cases are proof that the vaccines don’t work or – even worse – that perhaps the vaccines are the catalyst behind the Delta variant.

“Most of the new COVID cases in Israel are people who have been fully vaccinated. This has been blamed on the new Delta variant. Well, what if the vaccine generated or somehow enabled the new variant? Wouldn’t that explain this new reality?” a journalist from an alternative media outlet wrote on Facebook. “The evidence and logic are too compelling to ignore.”

Last week, a doctor interviewed on Fox’s Ingraham Angle even told the host that there is “no clinical reason to go get vaccinated,” citing Israeli data.

The situation became even more volatile after Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Friday that not only does Israel “not know exactly to what degree the vaccine helps, but it is significantly less.”

Bennett, who has pushed hard to get more people inoculated, was not making a broad statement about the vaccines but rather comparing the effectiveness of the shot against the Delta variant to previous mutations.

The Health Ministry had reported earlier this month that the Pfizer vaccine was only around 64% effective at stopping coronavirus infection with the Delta variant, compared to 95% against the original strain – and perhaps even less.

In addition, studies have shown that the vaccine is closer to 90% – as opposed to 97% – effective at stopping serious disease.

As such, it is true that daily coronavirus cases and hospitalizations from the virus have spiked in recent weeks.

According to Tuesday morning’s Health Ministry data, some 124 people were hospitalized, among them 62 in serious condition. More than 65% of people being treated in the hospital were fully vaccinated and closer to 70% of all serious patients. The numbers changed slightly in the evening.

But looking at the total number of new cases or the total percentage of vaccinated people who are hospitalized is “totally misleading,” according to Prof. Eyal Leshem, director of Sheba Medical Center’s Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Diseases.

He said the number to look at is not the absolute number of vaccinated patients who are infected with COVID but rather the rate.

“Does the vaccine reduce the risk of getting infected and getting severe disease? The answer to both questions is yes – the vaccine reduces the risk of getting infected and it significantly reduces the risk of developing severe disease,” Leshem said.

Data shared by Prof. Eran Segal, a computational biologist with the Weizmann Institute of Science who advises the government, showed that in this wave versus the previous wave, only between 1.2% and 1.6% of infected people are developing severe disease, compared to between 3.9% and 4.3%. When looking at the older population, in this wave between 4.8% and 6.8% of people over the age of 60 are developing severe disease, compared to 28.1% and 31%.

To make the math easy, let’s say there were 1 million Israelis (as opposed to more than 5m.) who were vaccinated and 100 of them got severe disease. At the same time, there are 100,000 unvaccinated Israelis and 100 of them also got severe disease. Some 50% of severe cases would be vaccinated. However, only 0.01% of vaccinated people would have developed severe disease, compared to 0.1% of the unvaccinated population.

“This is really confusing,” Leshem admitted. “You can have two-thirds of patients vaccinated and one-third unvaccinated, and a vaccine that is 90% effective and still have more vaccinated patients. No one takes the time to talk about it. They just show the tables and people freak out.”

In Israel, 88% or more than 2m. people over the age of 50 are inoculated, compared to around 230,000 who are not.

Moreover, most people who are developing serious cases of the disease are over the age of 60, among whom there is already a greater tendency to be immunocompromised and hence prone to breakthrough infection.

Also, people over 60 in general have a tendency to suffer from more severe diseases, as opposed to younger people who in all previous waves were more likely to develop mild or asymptomatic cases of the virus.

Finally, research is still being conducted on how much the vaccine’s protection wanes after six months or more. And it could be that older Israelis have less immunity since they were among the first to get inoculated.

The Delta variant did not start in Israel. It started in India, where the majority of citizens are unvaccinated, and most of those who are, did not have access to the Pfizer vaccine.

So, as this basic math lesson helps explain, anti-vaxxers might be loud but their claims border on lunacy. The vaccines don’t protect as well against the Delta variant, but they are certainly playing a key role in keeping Israelis safe.

In the battle between fact and fiction, the data should always win out.