August 19, 2021

Impact of the delta variant on vaccine effectiveness

There has been a lot of discussion and some concern around the ability of the COVID-19 vaccines to protect against the delta variant. Research conducted jointly by the University of Oxford, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has looked at the COVID-19 vaccines and how well they protect against infection from the delta variant, whether the timing of the dose interval plays a role, the impact of prior infection, the viral load in those who do catch the virus after being vaccinated, and how that compares with the alpha variant. Journalists dialled in to hear from two of the authors of the study discuss the work and answer any questions.

Please note this data is a preprint, so it is early work that has not yet been through peer-review and is not published in a journal.

Speakers included:

Prof Sarah Walker, Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford, and Chief Investigator and Academic Lead for the National COVID-19 Infection Survey

Dr Koen Pouwels, Senior Researcher at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford

This Briefing was accompanied by an SMC Roundup of Comments.