The Maccabi study was designed with this comparison in mind: they look at efficacy in days 1-12 and 13-24 after the first dose. They are mainly interested in comparing the Pfizer results for days 13-21 (89% efficacy) with real-world data. They show that the real world data is actually showing only ~50% protection in days 13-21, compared to 89% in the Pfizer data for the same period. This is somewhat disheartening.
HOWEVER, the Maccabi paper is not measuring the same thing as the Pfizer study. The Pfizer study only looked at symptomatic infections (Covid19 symptoms + positive PCR for SARS-CoV-2), while the Maccabi paper is also including asymptomatic infections.
Neither study includes sufficient data to accurately compare with the other one - the Pfizer study did not do PCR tests on anyone who didn't show symptoms, so we don't know how many asymptomatic infections they had exra; and the Maccabi study didn't record symptom information, so we don't know what percentage of those infected were symptomatic.
All of these numbers and facts are explicitly mentioned in the Maccabi study, it's not me reading into the data on my own.
We always knew that the the Pfizer vaccine has a lower chance of preventing transmissions, the original treatment regime was two doses, and we further know that the Pfizer vaccine wasn't originally tested vs B117 and the other mutations and it's quite possible it has lower efficiency vs those.
Still, there's a good chance two doses offer even higher protection, and frankly if all adult population receives only the 'symptomatic' protection the plague will be over as far as Israel is concerned (barring yearly(?) boosters) - hearing there's any protection for asymptomatic infections is heartening.
The political rather than medical decision making in Israel is out in the open, there’s no need for conspiracies.
It took @RanBalicer 3 days to acknowledge the abysmal data, and it was not “gee, we might have made a mistake in the model”, it’s always “an unexpected twist in the mutation/behaviour/population”. It is beyond embarrassing. But I digress.
Let’s just agree that the 95% RRR for “reported mild symptoms” is meaningless, and that the 50% number from Maccabi is actually good news, and we should use that number in models and predictions?
What Maccabi did publish on the second dose, it was in a much more encouraging note. Granted, not a peer reviewed paper, that would be difficult given lack of time.
Claiming Yediot is parroting the government is delusional. I won't belabor about it, since most HN readers deserve better than Israeli politics or the eternal elections.