Thousands of Israelis tested positive for coronavirus after first vaccine shot - Haaretz

Over 10,000 Israelis test positive within two weeks of receiving the first dose, while antibody tests on health workers show 'the vaccine works wonderfully' after the second dose.

Over 12,400 Israeli residents have tested positive for COVID-19 after being vaccinated, among them 69 people who had already gotten the second dose, which began to be administered early last week, the Health Ministry reported.

This amounts to 6.6 percent of the 189,000 vaccinated people who took coronavirus tests after being vaccinated.

According to the ministry’s data, 5,348 people were found infected up to a week after getting the vaccine, of the 100,000 people who were vaccinated and then tested a week later – an infection rate of 5.4 percent of those vaccinated during that time.

Another 5,585 people tested positive for the virus between the eighth and 14th day after getting the first vaccine – 8.3 percent of the 67,000 people who were vaccinated and tested during that post-vaccination period.

Of the 3,199 people who took coronavirus tests between day 22 and day 28 after the first vaccine, 84 were found to be positive (2.6 percent), including 69 people who had already been vaccinated twice.

Some 2.15 million people have been vaccinated in Israel over the past month, of whom 300,000 have already gotten a second dose.

In some groups of inoculated people during the different post-vaccine periods, the ratio of positive tests corresponds to the ratio of positive tests in the general population, the overwhelming majority of whom were not yet vaccinated.

Meanwhile, serological tests done on employees of Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer a week after they had received the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine showed that of 102 employees tested, 100 had antibody levels between 6 to 20 times higher than they had presented a week earlier.

According to Pfizer, the big jump in immunity is meant to come between day 15 and day 21, when the vaccine’s effectiveness is meant to go from 52 percent to 89 percent, after which the second dose is meant to bring the vaccinated percent to a state of 95 percent protection.