RE:RE:NBF: New travel restrictions push recovery to the rightHere are excerpts from today’s London Financial Times, which supports my previous post.
Note:
· Israel’s total cases per 1 million population is 74,948. Deaths per 1 million population is 556.
· Canada’s total cases per 1 million population is 21,188. Deaths per 1 million population is 547.
Israel provides first signs of mass vaccination driving down virus cases - Cases and hospital admissions in Israel are falling steeply among vaccinated age groups in the first clear sign worldwide that Covid-19 jabs are preventing illness.
- Daily case rates among people aged 60 and above have fallen by 46 per cent relative to their mid-January peak, compared with a much smaller decline of 18 per cent among under-60s.
- The country has been in a lockdown since January 8 that initially pushed cases down across all ages at a similar rate, but the striking divergence in trajectory between the older citizens — who have received the jabs — and younger people has opened up in the wake of the world’s fastest vaccine rollout.
- The country has so far administered over 57 doses per 100 residents.
- Eighty per cent of Israelis aged 60 and above had received at least their first dose of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine by 15 January, with mass rollout of the second dose beginning around the same time.
- As of 4 February, 78 per cent of this group have now received two doses. Hospital admissions of those aged 60 and above have already dropped 34 per cent below mid-January levels.
- Similar patterns are apparent in both moderate and severe hospital cases, suggesting that the vaccine is protecting against not only mild illness but also severe disease.
- Vaccine makers including BioNTech/Pfizer have created their products primarily to prevent disease in people infected with coronavirus. But preliminary evidence suggests the vaccines also reduce transmission of the virus.
- When cases first began to fall in Israel in the second half of January, it was initially unclear whether the cause was the vaccine or the national lockdown, but as more data has come through, more and more evidence points to the role of inoculations.
- “The effect is stronger [among older people] than in the younger populations who were later to vaccinate, and these patterns were not seen in the previous lockdown”, said Professor Eran Segal, leader of the Tel-Aviv team who analysed the data. “Additionally, our data has proven that those patients who do contract the Covid-19 virus post vaccination have a milder course of disease.”
US states pull back from weekly records for new cases
- US states have pulled back from a record number of weekly new coronavirus cases for the second week in a row, according to a widely used database.
- The weekend’s figures showed 114,000 cases were reported on Saturday, down from 131,000 on Friday. There were 84,233 patients in hospital with Covid-19 on Saturday, 2,140 fewer than recorded on the previous day, CTP reported. That figure is about 45,000 fewer from the peak in early January.
- The number of new daily cases is declining in all regions of the US, with Midwest states showing the sharpest reduction, the CTP said.
- Seven-day average cases are down nearly 50 per cent since their peak on January 12.
- Only a quarter of the average new cases per capita in the Midwest have been reported, compared with the peak in late November 2020.