Pharmacist, Murtaza Abdulkarim (L) administers a dose of the AstraZeneca / Oxford Covid-19 vaccine on February 4 to a patient at a temporary vaccination center, staffed by pharmacists and pharmacy assistants, at the Al-Abbas Islamic Center in Birmingham, West Midlands , 2021.
Oli Scarff | AFP | Getty Images
LONDON – The first real-world data from the UK inoculation program has provided insight into how effective vaccines are against Covid-19.
The vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine was the first shot approved and rolled out in the UK in December. The over-80s, health workers and nursing home workers were the first to be vaccinated. That was soon followed by the shot developed by the British firm AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
Here are four charts that summarize how effective these vaccines are and how they play their role in the fight against the pandemic:
Declining deaths in people over 85
Since the elderly were the first to be vaccinated, it is noticeable that the mortality from Covid decreases fastest in those age groups. The chart below summarizes the number of Covid deaths for Scotland, with a decline in the over-85s group just as the vaccination program began to gain momentum. Click here for full details.
An increase in antibodies
A blood test study published last week by Imperial College London found that nearly 14% of the UK population now has antibodies against the coronavirus. While this doesn’t necessarily mean immunity, it was interesting the results of the people vaccinated and how high their antibody levels were. 18,000 study participants with 155,000 subjects were vaccinated and the results are in the table below. Click here for full details.
A separate study in England found that the highest percentage of people who tested positive for antibodies was 80 years and older, 41%, which, according to statisticians, was “most likely due to the high vaccination coverage in this group.”
The actual effectiveness of the Pfizer shot
Public Health England examined in detail how effective the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been so far in protecting against symptomatic diseases. The graph below shows that one dose is 57% effective in protecting against symptomatic Covid-19 disease in subjects over the age of 80 (from 28 days after the first dose).
The effectiveness of the vaccine is calculated using a mathematical statistic called an odds ratio, click here for full data and methodology.
… and the AstraZeneca vaccine
Public Health Scotland also collected data on the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine for all age groups. The graph shows that, by the fourth week after receiving a first dose, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines reduced the risk of hospitalization from Covid-19 to 85% and 94%, respectively. Click here for data and full methodology.
Since the start of the vaccination rollout, the UK has immunized all of its top four priority groups on track. It now aims to vaccinate all over-50s by mid-April and all adults by the end of July, two months ahead of an earlier target.
As of Sunday, more than 20 million people have received their first dose of a vaccine, and nearly 800,000 have received both doses, government data say.
The UK’s vaccination program is widely hailed as a triumph in the midst of tragedy; According to Johns Hopkins University, the UK has the fifth highest number of infections worldwide, after the US, India, Brazil and Russia, with more than 4.1 million registered infections and 123,083 deaths.
—CNBC’s Bryn Bache contributed to this article.