Luhut Brings Bad News: COVID-19 Delta Variant Could Lower The Efficacy Of All Types Of Vaccines, Even Pfizer

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. (Photo: Doc. Kemenko Marves)

JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment (Menko Marves) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said that the delta variant of COVID-19 has reduced the efficacy of all existing vaccine brands. In fact, Pfizer which is said to have the best efficacy has also dropped.

"We see that this delta variant is able to reduce the efficacy of all types of vaccines (covid-19 currently available)," he said in a virtual press conference, Thursday, July 15.

Luhut said that based on data on COVID-19 cases in Israel, the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine has also decreased against this delta variant. Therefore, he reminded all parties not to politicize the issue of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The person who said that Pfizer's vaccine was the most powerful in Israel, he dropped sharply too, AstraZeneca, Moderna, you name it. I want to remind us that it's just the Delta variant. Is there maybe another variant? We never know. We don't know. So don't there is this politicization. Please don't exist. This is a humanitarian problem," he said.

Furthermore, Luhut said that although the vaccine's efficacy had decreased against the delta variant of COVID-19, vaccinations still had to be carried out. This means that the vaccination program to achieve the herd immunity target will continue

"The speed of vaccination is important, even though I say the efficacy has decreased, but in our experience, the probability of people being injected with an injection is very small," he said.

"Although we see that he died now, but because of the large number of people affected, his anus also died. Many, frankly, at the beginning, it was possible to lack medicine, or maybe lack of oxygen," he continued.

For your information, the Israeli authorities reported a decrease in the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech in preventing transmission and symptomatic disease. But Israel stressed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine remains highly effective in preventing severe disease.