INTERACTIVE: Vaccination showing good results abroad but experts warn against complacency

FILE PHOTO: A health care worker prepares a dose of China's Sinovac Biotech vaccine for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), during a mass vaccination for vendors at the Tanah Abang textile market in Jakarta, Indonesia, February 17,2021. REUTERS/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/File Photo

PETALING JAYA: Countries that are on board with a vaccination programme since last year are now showing positive results in reducing Covid-19 cases and deaths, with promising views of a semblance of normalcy of life in the months to come.

For example, more than half of Israel's population of more than nine million people had received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine while about three million of them have since been given the second dose.

Israel's health statistics saw the first group to take the vaccine - those 60 years and older - showing a 41% decrease in the number of new infections within six weeks of the vaccination programme, while Covid-19 hospitalisation dropped by 31% and those who became critically ill reduced by 24%.