Israeli expert says impact of vaccine passes less relevant now
Professor Cyrille Cohen, head of the laboratory of immunotherapy at Bar-Ilan university and member of Israel’s advisory committee for clinical trials on Covid-19 vaccines, told that the impact of so-called health passes is less relevant than they once were.
“If your objective of the health pass is to generate a safe environment for those who are vaccinated, I think that is no longer the case because unfortunately people who are vaccinated – even with four doses – can get contaminated,” Cohen told us.
The world looked to Israel for guidance as it pioneered the global Covid-19 vaccination push in December 2020, but in the year since then the messaging of what to expect from the vaccines has changed.
Amid initial proclamations of 95 per cent efficacy in reducing transmission – what is the current messaging on Covid-19 vaccines?
Cohen said the message can’t be that the ‘vaccines prevent transmission’ – “that’s no longer true” – and that’s not as important as “the vaccine is preventing severe cases”.
“We have to take into account several things, the first is time elapsed from the moment you got the vaccine, while the second is what kind of variant you are facing,” Cohen explained.
“It’s not just a question of whether you are vaccinated or not, even people who got the disease – a previous variant, like the Alpha or Delta – can also become contaminated with Omicron, so we understand that with different variants we have a different way to look at things,” he said.
Some have long viewed the Covid-19 passes as a tool to prod the public towards vaccination, something which Cohen believes may have had an impact but has now likely run its course.
“I think at this point whoever wanted to get vaccinated has done so, whoever has decided against getting vaccinated will not get vaccinated today,” he told us.
It also depends on what variant we’re facing: “Let’s say that there is a very reduced efficacy in the vaccine preventing infection, I don’t think it’s zero but it’s very low compared to what we knew so far.”
As for new variants, there has been much debate over the severity of Omicron with some arguing that it only appears to be less severe because populations have built up higher levels of immunity – either naturally acquired or via the vaccine – than previous waves.
Cohen told that Omicron is less severe in general but that doesn’t mean that it’s not severe at all.
“The problem is again, at the level of the individual: even if it is less severe for one person, when you have ten times more contaminations compared to what you had with previous variants then of course you will still have a burden on hospitals,” Cohen said.
“But in general, it seems that it [Omicron] is less problematic, although we shouldn’t underestimate it; it doesn’t mean go out and get exposed,” he added.
With all the coverage surrounding Covid-19, what does Cohen think we are not discussing enough?
“I think after a few years we will have to look back at the different strategies and try to learn what will be best for the next pandemic,” he told us.
“We will have to understand if lockdown and quarantine were the best things to do,” Cohen added.
The professor emphasised that closing schools had “a real impact on the disease” but also had serious repercussions for children.
“I think once the dust settles, we will have to face many social issues and we will have to think about how to deal with those situations,” he said.
Cohen expressed the importance of learning from what we’ve been through over the past two years, “because we don’t know when the next pandemic will be and we must be prepared”.
But won’t some lessons be difficult to learn – as there will always be counterfactuals, with statements such as: “well, it would have been worse had we not taken this measure?”
“I agree, it’s very easy to say two years after the fact, with a variant that is less problematic, most of the population vaccinated – at least in Israel – with three doses, it’s easy to talk and say that mistakes were made here or there but we must try to better understand the impact of each issue,” Cohen said.
“It was a time of crisis and we needed to act but that doesn’t mean that everything we did was right,” he added.