A key vaccine advisor to the Israeli government has revealed he and his colleagues were “surprised” and “disappointed” last year as it became clear the jabs were not stopping the spread of Covid-19.
Professor Cyrille Cohen, head of immunology at Bar Ilan University and a member of the advisory committee on vaccines for the Israeli government, made the comments in a wide-ranging and frank interview with UK news website UnHerd on Wednesday.
Israel, with a population of just 9.4 million, led the world in vaccination against Covid-19 early, starting its rollout in December 2020.
In April 2021, Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla said early trial data showed its vaccine “was 100 per cent effective against severe Covid-19”.
“Did you expect the vaccines to be better at preventing transmission than they were?” host Freddie Sayers asked Prof Cohen.
“Yes … especially based on what we had seen in March, in April,” he replied.
“The feeling we had in Israel last Spring, we were after a deadly month of January with more than 4000 people that died, we were after our third lockdown, and suddenly we were opening and opening and opening, and cases were going down, hospitals were getting empty. I’m not joking, my colleagues, doctors were dancing in the corridors out of joy (thinking) it’s over.”
Prof Cohen said he and his colleagues “did believe at that time that vaccines can prevent transmission”.
“What we believed is that vaccines can prevent transmission perhaps shortly after (being administered) but not over a long period of time, and therefore yes, we were surprised to discover at the end of the day that no, the vaccines are not protecting us, they are not causing what we call sterilising immunity,” he said. http://globalreportage.org/2022/01/23/israeli-officials-were-surprised-and-disappointed-vaccines-did-not-stop-transmission/
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