Coronavirus vaccine. Research in Scotland: vaccine effectiveness is impressive

Researchers from the Scottish government agency Public Health Scotland and five universities there compared the numbers of people admitted to hospital for COVID-19 despite receiving the first dose of the vaccine with the number of unvaccinated people who required hospitalization.

The vaccine, developed jointly by Pfizer and BioNTech, has been found to reduce the risk of hospitalization by 85 percent after four weeks, and the formulation by scientists at the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca – by 94 percent. In addition, it was found that among those over 80 – who are most at risk from COVID-19 and its severe course – hospitalizations fell by 81 percent.

The researchers came to these conclusions after analyzing data on 1.14 million vaccinations that were carried out in Scotland between December 8 and February 15. 21 percent of the adult population received the injection. It turned out that at that time a total of just over 8,000 people were admitted to hospitals diagnosed with COVID-19, of which only 58 from the vaccinated group, four weeks after administration of the preparation.

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Lead study leader Professor Aziz Sheikh said the results turned out to be “very, very” impressive and that both vaccines work “spectacularly”.

– These results are very encouraging and give us great reasons to be optimistic. We now have evidence from all over the country that vaccination protects against hospitalizations for COVID-19, emphasized Prof. Sheikh.

These are the first data on vaccine efficacy in the UK based not on laboratory tests carried out on volunteers, but on information about actually vaccinated people. Similar statistics on vaccination effectiveness in England should be published soon.

The greater effectiveness of AstraZeneca is due to the fact that the effects of the vaccines after four weeks have been studied, and in this case extending the interval between the first and second doses improves it. However, according to Pfizer / BioNTech, the maximum effectiveness of their product is achieved when the interval between doses is three weeks. The British government has decided to extend the interval between the administration of the first and second dose of vaccines in order to give the first dose to as many people as possible as soon as possible.

According to the latest data from the New York Times, over 18.1 million people in Great Britain have already received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. According to calculations, on average 27.4 per 100 people have already been vaccinated.

178 people died across the UK from COVID-19 on Monday. Together, they died from the coronavirus 120 757 people.

On Monday, 10,641 more cases of coronavirus infection were also reported. The day before, 9,834 infections were confirmed. In total, she fell ill with COVID-19 4 126 150 people.