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The Telegraph

Vaccinations not lockdown caused ‘sharper decline in coronavirus in over-60s’

Vaccinations caused a “larger and earlier” decline in coronavirus cases and hospitalisations in over-60s than lockdown, the first real-world study comparing the two interventions has found. Last week, Boris Johnson said it was “very, very important” for the country to understand that the recent reductions in infections, admissions and deaths had “not been achieved by the vaccination programme” alone, arguing that lockdown had been “overwhelmingly important”. There were just two deaths reported in England on Monday and four for Britain in total, with cases down by 10 per cent in a week and admissions down 12 per cent. However, real world data from the Israeli vaccination programme shows that cases and hospitalisations in over-60s fell far faster in January and February when a significant proportion of the population had been vaccinated, compared to when the country was placed in lockdown in September. A team from the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, found that within 50 days of Israel’s third lockdown starting on January 8, there had been a 45 per cent decrease in positive cases in the over-60s compared to a 28 per cent decline in 20 to 39-year-olds.