Free Republic

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa may evade the protection provided by Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in Israel found, though its prevalence in the country is very low and the research has not been peer reviewed. The study, released on Saturday, compared almost 400 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, 14 days or more after they received one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of unvaccinated patients with the disease. It matched age and gender, among other characteristics. The South African variant, B.1.351, was found to...

A new study from Israel indicates the South Africa variant of the coronavirus can "break through" the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to some degree. A team from Tel Aviv University and Clalit Health Services found that the prevalence of the South Africa variant among patients who received both doses of the vaccine was around eight times higher than those unvaccinated – 5.4% versus 0.7%. The study compared over 400 people who received at least one shot of the vaccine and contracted the coronavirus with the same number who were infected and unvaccinated. "We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African...