February 10, 2021

expert reaction to Sun exclusive reporting on efficacy of single dose of the COVID-19 vaccines

An exclusive article in the Sun today stated that the COVID-19 vaccines “offers two-thirds protection in just ONE jab”.

Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, The Norwich School of Medicine, University of East Anglia, said:

“The reports of the effectiveness of the current vaccines in the UK, if correct, are greatly reassuring that the UK vaccination strategy is the correct one.  However, these data are still preliminary data that have not yet been published in full either in a peer-reviewed article or as a pre-print. Nevertheless, what has been reported in the Sun does have the ring of truth to me. The report that it takes longer for the over 80s to reach maximum protection compared to only 15 days for younger age groups is something that I think indicates that the sources of the Sun’s leaks had in fact seen the analyses as I doubt anyone would make that up. I think this finding of a delayed response in the over 80s could explain some of the findings in recent pre-prints on the Israeli experience and would not have been generally expected.

“If true that there is very little drop in protection in the older age groups or between the Oxford and Pfizer vaccines, this would be hugely reassuring. But as yet we do not know for certain how these estimates were calculated or what the confidence intervals around them are, so until we see some scientific publication then we should not get too carried away.

“It is not surprising that effectiveness would be somewhat lower in the real world that the reported efficacy in phase three trials as this is can be the case with vaccines being rolled out. Also at this point we don’t know for certain what endpoint was used. If the figures contained in the article represents case positivity, then it is likely that effectiveness at preventing severe disease may be even better.  

“As regards to the impact of these findings on the likely timing of getting out of lockdown, it is still too early to say. But an effective vaccine with high uptake will certainly help us get that that point sooner than would otherwise be the case but given that so far it does appear that vaccination alone will not stop community transmission of the infection and herd immunity is an unrealistic target, we still need to be cautious as we come out of lockdown for a while yet.”

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14000732/covid-vaccine-protection-just-one-jab/

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