The COVID Delta variant hits Israel. As many as half of the new cases are people who are vaccinated.

[speak easy]

Last edited Thu Jun 24, 2021, 07:13 PM - Edit history (1)

Israel says the Delta variant is infecting vaccinated people, representing as many as 50% of new cases. But they're less severe.

As many as half of new COVID-19 cases in Israel are vaccinated people*, a health official suggested.

The Delta variant, not as easily beaten by vaccines as other variants, is driving Israel's surge.

Although Infections among vaccinated people have alarmed Israelis, the infections appear to be milder than they are in unvaccinated people.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-says-delta-variant-infecting-110300111.html

Israel to Reinstate Indoor Mask Mandate Next Week as COVID Delta Variant Spreads
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-covid-delta-variant-two-month-record-1.9935923

*EDIT: As at June 23, 59.55% of Israelis are fully vaccinated, 4.19% are partially vaccinated.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=ISR

[mucifer]

1. 57% of the population is fully vaccinated. So they still have a lot of people to vaccinate

[speak easy]

3. And half of the new cases are people who are vaccinated.

[SheltieLover]

2. Even asymptomatic cases can result in long-haul!

[NickB79]

8. We know asymptomatic cases can result in long haul in unvaccinated people

We don't know if vaccinated people can get long-haul symptoms, especially those with the Pfizer vaccine.

[SheltieLover]

9. Talk to OhioChick

Either she or ER doctor son had Pfizer - fully vaxed - has long haul.

Only 1 case, I realize, but there is that.

[moonscape]

36. I believe she had Pfizer, he Moderna, both

long haulers now with his case the more severe of the two.

[SheltieLover]

37. Ty. I couldn't remember which of them had the Pfizer

She did tell me he had 8 otherwise healthy, fully vaxed patients die in the hospital from covid. Ages were 20s - 30s. That was in 1 week!

Not sure why media isn't doint its job.

[OhioChick]

39. You're correct, thank you n/t

[womanofthehills]

35. My friend has long haul from vaccine

Really bad brain fog and her body jerks involuntary every 15 minutes or so.

[SheltieLover]

38. Sorry to hear!

[Baitball Blogger]

42. Did he ever get diagnosed with Epstein-Barr?

[Nevilledog]

4. Did they only use Pfizer?

[speak easy]

5. Yes. Only Pfizer.

[UpInArms]

11. Our county (northwest unvaccinated Missouri)

Had “breakthrough” cases …



Moderna - 1
Pfizer - 7
Johnson & Johnson - 2

We went from 0 local cases to 19 confirmed (super spreader church event)

Sigh

[Nevilledog]

14. Our county only had Moderna, so I was just interested how it was fairing

I expect my red AZ county will have an increase.....went into two busy stores last week and I was the ONLY person with a mask.

[UpInArms]

15. We had all three

Was so grateful to get my family vaccinated …

The county has a 27.1% vaccination rate

[Nevilledog]

24. Yikes

We're not that much better.....35.9% fully vaccinated

[Ms. Toad]

34. Per the NYT, they also used Moderna.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/world/middleeast/israel-covid-delta-variant.html

[Pobeka]

6. "It wasn't clear whether those people had been fully or partially vaccinated."

Super important detail for understanding if the vaccinations are stopping the virus. If the new cases are hitting folks with only 1 dose of a 2 dose regimen, or before the full protection level which occurs two weeks after the second dose, it is possible the vaccines are still quite effective after that.

These is the type of reporting that makes me crazy. The sentence in quotes should have been in bulleted points at the lead of the yahoo story.

[speak easy]

12. Perhaps if you were aware of the actual vaccination rates, you might be a little less crazy.

Israel vaccination rates at June 23, 2021
Fully vaccinated 59.55%;
Partially vaccinated 4.19%
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=ISR

[Pobeka]

18. I was speaking in reference to vaxed folks getting infected with Delta.

Vaccination rates aren't all that helpful in understanding the nuance of the vax status of those infected with Delta.

[LisaL]

45. There are very few people who are partially vaccinated in Israel.

So chances are most of the people who are vaccinated and infected are fully vaccinated.
India had a huge population of un-vaccinated people, allowing covid to mutate and through natural selection, the fittest variant (delta) emerged from India.

[Pobeka]

49. There are far fewer people getting infected too (relatively).

Thus, the problem with using percentages.

Also, it is not a controlled trial, so lots of reasons for cultural behaviours to affect the numbers. It is not a true sample from a homogenous group.

Can't really say much at all from the data we have at hand, it's much too coarse to evaluate breakthroughs.

Probably Israel health has the full information required, it just doesn't make it out in little media reports...

[LisaL]

59. Israel's cases are going up in recent days.

After doing pretty well for several months (their daily cases were under 100), they got delta variant from abroad.
And now cases are going up again.
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/coronavirus-in-israel-227-new-cases-in-last-24-hours-672023

[Ms. Toad]

7. It appears that they are including people with one of the two doses in their "vaccinated" total -

even though one dose is ~50% effective against the original variant adn about 30% effective against the Delta variant.

The article indicates 88% effectiveness after full vaccination (2 doses + 2 weeks).

Two doses of the vaccines appear to be protective against Delta.

An analysis by UK health officials found that two doses of Pfizer's vaccine were 88% effective against Delta while a single shot was 33% effective. That's compared with 95% efficacy against the original strain, or 52% after one shot.

That said- I've been continuing to wear a mask indoors with people other than those I live with, for the most part. (I've eaten out a handful of times (3 or 4) - mask off only when consuming food, and only at tables with 100% vaccinated individuals) and have been urging it on DU (largely falling on deaf ears).

[LisaL]

10. Israel is reinstating its mask mandate.

I never stopped wearing my mask in public, and will continue to do so.

[Ms. Toad]

17. Same here.

I'm gettng a lot of funny looks, and some questions. But I made it this long without coming down with COVID. I see no reason to invite it in now.

I can count 4 times I've eaten out indoors since being fully vaccinated. I think that's it. My plan is to keep it up until there is ~70% vaccination + fewer than 50 cases/100,000 over two weeks. The case count is in the right range ~26/100,000), but we're nowhere near 70% vaccination.

[Hugin]

23. Pls, PM me when your sensible criteria is met, Ms Toad.

I too am still masking and following the original guidelines.

With the peace of mind which comes from having the backup of being vaccinated.

I do it now for the little children and those who insist on acting like them.

[jeffreyi]

29. Me too.

And in a definite micro-minority in my redneck county. Covid cases in my county are on the rise again.

[lagomorph777]

46. My county is doing well with vaccines; I am fully vaxxed. But I am still wearing mask and visor.

And I do not expect to ever eat inside a restaurant again.

[liberal_mama]

53. I rarely ate in restaurants before Covid, now I don't think I will ever eat in them again

I was a waitress for 10 years and I was constantly sick with some flu, cold, or stomach bug. Viruses spread quickly in restaurants. When I think back to my waitressing days, it kind of disgusts me how unsanitary it was. One time, the health department shut us down and everything had to be scrubbed down with chemicals because one of the employees had hepatitis.

[Arkansas Granny]

13. Like you, I am still following pretty much the same routine as before I was vaccinated.

The number of cases is rising in my state even as the rate of vaccinations is falling. I have spent the last year doing my best to avoid this disease and I'm not going to risk undoing that now.

Fortunately, my family and close friends have all been vaccinated, so we're able to do things together instead of being so isolated like the past year.

[speak easy]

16. Only 4.2% of the Israeli population is partially vaccinated, Ms. Toad

59.5% of Israelis are fully vaccinated. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=ISR

[Ms. Toad]

21. At some point each of those fully vaccinated people was only partially vaccinated.

Pretty sure these numbers don't represent just today's cases. What matters is the status of the individual at the time they contracted COVID. Not their status today.

ETA:

Levy told the state broadcaster Kan Bet that about 40% to 50% of new cases appeared to be people who had been vaccinated, Haaretz reported. He did not appear to specify a time frame for the new cases.

The figure is likely an estimate, as the ministry is still analyzing the cases. On Monday, Levy said that a third of the new daily cases were people who had been vaccinated.

It wasn't clear whether those people had been fully or partially vaccinated.

[speak easy]

26. On June 1, 59.33% of Israelis were fully vaccinated, 3.67% were partially vaccinated.

Same source: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=ISR

You can say, 'it must be only (or mainly) those partially vaccinated people who are getting it', if you want to. Commonsense suggests otherwise.

[Pobeka]

28. No.

Common sense would dictate that of a population of partially vaccinated and fully vaccinated people, breakthrough infections are happening predominately or entirely in the portion of the population without full immunization protection, which is the partially vaccinated category.

[speak easy]

30. Let's take the 'entirely in the portion of the population without full immunization protection'

proposition first.

So the 4.2% the Israeli population who are partially vaccinated account for 30-50% of new COVID infections?

Or maybe be it 80% of the vaccinated infections are partially vaccinated people?

So ... 4.2% of the population account for 25 - 40% of new infections?

Whichever way you figure it, you are saying partially vaccinated people are more likely, a lot more likely, to get infected with Covid, than those who are not vaccinated at all.

[Ms. Toad]

31. Your common sense apparently doesn't understand math.

Partial vaccination status is not a fixed condition. It is a rolling bubble of people. People enter the bubble when they get their first vaccination, and leave 2 weeks after their second. The percent of the population who passed through the partially vaccinated bubble at some point during the period covered by the infections (which the article doesn't identify) is higher than the snapshot of the people in the partially vaccinated bubble today.

Just to make the point - I was in the partially vaccinated bubble from March 6 to April 10. I am no longer in the partially vaccinated bubble for the US (currently at 8.1% of the population). In terms of tracking cases, had I come down with COVID 19 on April 1, it would have been while I was partially vaccinated. BUT by your reasoning, I count as fully vaccinated because I am not in today's 8.1% partially vaccinated bubble. In the mean time, 44.2% of the population of the US passed through that partly vaccinated bubble between when I entered it and today.

You either have to compare the snapshot of people infected to today's unvaccinated bubble OR you have to compare partially vaccinated people over the entire time period during which you are counting cases. You can't compare a snapshot of one data point to cases collected over a range of dates.

Better yet - they should actually, on a case by case basis, identify the vaccination status of each person. That's the only meaningful way to evaluate this data. The rest is just noise and speculation fueled by poor reporting.

As to whether partially vaccinate people acquire COVID at a higher rate than unvaccinated - it would not surprise me at all. I know quite a few people who started acting as if they were invincible from the moment they received their first shot. Sometimes a little protection can be dangerous.

[LisaL]

44. In all likelyhood vaccinated people were fully vaccinated.

The number of partially vaccinated people in Israel is very small. Most people are fully vaccinated, and about 40 % of population is not vaccinated at all-I presume they are either not eligible (too young) or anti-vaxxers.

[Ms. Toad]

52. It depends on when they developed COVID

Vaccination is not an instantaneous process and, inherently, every single vaccinated person had a minimum period of 5-6 weeks during which they were not fully vaccinated. None of the articles I have found indicate the period over which they collected this data. Between when I started vaccination and now, 42% of the US was in a partially vaccinated state for some portion of that time.

Cases which developed in people in that 5-6 week period would be partially vaccinated cases - even if NOW those same people are fully vaccinated.

In addition - every article I have found expressly indicates that the officials who released the information did not disclose the period over which the cases developed - OR - whether the individuals were full or partally vaccinated.

Until they release more detailed information, there is simply no way to tell. But what we know about effectiveness would suggest the cases are more likely in the partially vaccinated (estimated to be 33% effective against the Delta variant) than in the fully vaccinated (estimated at 88%)

[LisaL]

54. They developed it now. It's all happening right now.

After vaccinating ~60 % of population, Israel decided that pandemic was over, and lifted restrictions. But in recent days cases are rising again, because of delta variant.
Based in Israel's numbers, I doubt 88% effectiveness for fully vaccinated.

[Ms. Toad]

57. Now today?

Now within the last week?

Now within the last month?

Now within the last 2 months

Those body of people who are partially vaccinated today means virtually nothing if the cases they are reporting are a cumulative total over the past 2 months (when some of the people fully vaccinated today weren't fully vaccinated). They don't get treated as breakthrough case if - at the time they contracted COVID - they were only partially vaccinated.

And, as to Israel, the officials who disclosed the information did not disclose the period of time over which the cases they are reporting devloped.

It is like counting the number of breakthrough cases that occur today, dividing by the number of people vaccinated, and declaring based on that calculaton that there are virtually no breakthrough cases. Some of those people who weren't breakthrough cases today were yesterday, or will be tomorrow (or 6 months from now, or 6 months ago). Or dividing the number of people who die today by the # of cases over the entire pandemic and declaring that COVID barely kills anyone.

[LisaL]

58. Last several days.

NT

[Ms. Toad]

60. Nothin in any of the articles limited it to the past several days.

Each expressly said that the period in which these cases developed was not specified - and, in addition, the distinction between partially vaccinated and fully vaccinated was not specified.

[LisaL]

62. I googled.

You don't have to be limited to what is in the OP.
It's going on now, with cases increasing now. You can look up Israel's covid stats. June 21st is when they first reported over 100 cases, and it's going up ever since.

[Ms. Toad]

65. Before my first post,

I had already read a half dozen articles. None of them answer the questions that allow you to determine whether the cases were in partially vaccinated individuals or fully vaccinated.

There were cases in Israel more than a month ago. The statement by the Israeli officials did not narrow the window of time over which they were collecting data that comprised this report. Nor did they identify whether those individuals were fully or partially vaccinated. Nothing anything has said in this thread (and nothing I have found from before I made my first post, or in responses to comments by others) has disclosed the critical information.

[Pobeka]

22. I agree with all of this. Plus wearing a mask helps reluctant mask wearers to wear one too ...

... reluctant and unvaccinated (due to vax conspiracy fears, or real health reasons).

Seeing someone else wearing a mask goes a long way toward feeling OK about wearing one yourself.

[Ms. Toad]

25. That is actually one of the main reasons I'm wearing a mask at the moment.

There's hardly anyone in our building at the moment - but seeing someone at my level in the organization (mid-level dean at a law school) goes a ways toward making it OK for others who feel unsafe but worried about looking out-of-place.

I had a conversation with a recent graduate - he was extremely concerned that our University is mandting in-person attendance but relying on the honor system to ensure the proven dishonorable who aren't vaccinated are wearing masks.

If leading by example makes it easier for others to protect themselves, I'm happy to be inconvenienced.

[Pobeka]

27. Two thumbs up for you!

[lagomorph777]

47. Around here, bare faces stick out like bare crotches.

I'd feel weird without a mask. I'm very grateful for that.

[ZonkerHarris]

19. why i still wear a mask

[Bev54]

20. We had 22 cases in one of our hospitals here, 11 vaccinated and 11 unvaccinated

The only person that died, so far, was fully vaccinated but elderly, others vaccinated had only minor symptoms, the unvaccinated are in trouble.

[GulfCoast66]

33. Not too worried. Read the whole article.

My take away was 100 cases. Which means 50 or so vaccinated. But even that is uncertain. One guy said maybe a third of the unvaccinated. But they don’t know yet. They need more study.

Oh, and none of the cases were severe. That’s clearly stated.

Someone the thread above stated that asymptotic could have long term effects. I’ve read that nowhere. Can someone post a link. Because if you have effects you are, by definition, not asymptotic.

In my opinion is the headline was very sensational but the story was vague and not at all alarming. But who is surprised at that?

And I think sensationalizing the few breakthrough cases are amazingly harmful to the vaccine reluctant. If they are still likely to get sick, why take it? The fact is if vaccinated you are remarkably unlikely to get Covid.

[lagomorph777]

48. "sensationalizing the few breakthrough cases are amazingly harmful to the vaccine reluctant"

And that, my friend, is why stories like this are published. It's a feature, not a bug.

[GulfCoast66]

51. I can't help but agree.

[LisaL]

55. Only it's not a "few breakthrough cases" if half of infected with Delta are vaccinated.

It'd also be stupid to led people believe they are fully protected against delta, if they are not.

[helpisontheway]

40. My son's fully vaccinated fianc just tested positive

She had the Moderna vaccine. Unfortunately, we had just had our first unmasked visit with our son in over a year. We waited two months after he got his second vaccine. And now we have to wait for him to be tested today. If he tests positive then we will have to test. We don’t know if it is the Delta variant but it will say something about the vaccine if all 6 of us (fully vaccinated) end up positive.

[LisaL]

43. Vaccines were designed and tested against original covid.

They work really well against the original covid. But now there are all these mutants. Delta is much more infectious than original covid. There is only so much a vaccine can do.

[Pobeka]

50. Remember, the goal of the vaccine is to prevent serious illness, not prevent infection.

And if you don't get seriously (or even mildly) ill then the odds of you transmitting go waaaay down.

It is in the end, a probability problem. There is no 100% protection. For you, it will of course be an individual vaccine failure if you test positive (or your small group of 6). But if you are only 6 out of 100, then ultimately the virus will still subside.

[LisaL]

56. Ideally vaccine would prevent infection and illness.

NT

[Victor_c3]

61. According to a study done in the UK, Pfizer vaccine is 88% effective against delta

Compared to 95% effective against normal Covid. That’s only a single study, but it gives a little bit of insight.

It also appears that vaccinated people who do get the delta variant usually display milder symptoms compared to unvaccinated.

[LisaL]

63. And according to what has been going in Israel, it's not 88% effective.

NT