Early Data Shows Pfizer Vaccine Prevents Covid Spread

The data isn’t all in, but there’s evidence that Pfizer’s covid vaccine reduces the transmissibility of the coronavirus, according to The Times of Israel on Monday.

MyHeritage, the biggest covid lab in Israel, claimed that positive test results of patients age 60 and over had up to 60 percent smaller viral loads on the test swab than the 40-59 age group, starting in mid-January, when most of Israel’s population age 60-plus had already received at least one dose.

Clinical trials did not produce definitive results on whether those who are vaccinated will still spread the virus.

“Our result reflects great data, because it gives exactly what we want from a vaccine, namely that it reduces transmission,” Prof. Yaniv Erlich, head of the MyHeritage lab, told the Times. “It shows, to some extent, that this reduces viral load in the nose and throat, which is the main channel for transmission of the virus.”

The Israeli study is based on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is what almost all the shots in Israel have contained. However, last week, the team behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine released information that was encouraging. According to Dr. Doug Brown, chief executive of the British Society for Immunology, the study “hints” that the vaccine is effective in blocking transmission.