LONDON (AP) – Two UK studies released Monday showed that COVID-19 vaccination programs are contributing to a sharp drop in hospital admissions, bolstering hopes that the shots will work just as well in the real world as they do in careful controlled studies.
Preliminary results from a study in Scotland showed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine reduced hospitalizations by as much as 85% four weeks after the first dose, while the Oxford-AstraZeneca injection reduced the number of admissions by 94%. In England, preliminary data from a study of health professionals showed that the Pfizer vaccine reduced the risk of COVID-19 by 70% after one dose, a figure that rose to 85% after the second dose.
“This new evidence shows that the injection protects you and protects those around you,” said British Health Minister Matt Hancock. “It is important that we see as much evidence as possible about the impact of the vaccine on protection and transmission, and we will continue to publish evidence as we collect it.”
The investigations were released when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made plans on Monday to ease a lockdown that has closed pubs, schools and non-essential stores since early January. The introduction of the vaccine is critical to return the country to a sense of normalcy. To date, more than 17.5 million people have received a single dose of vaccine – more than a third of the adult population in the UK.
Britain has had the deadliest coronavirus outbreak in Europe, killing more than 120,000.
Public Health England said his study of health professionals suggests the vaccine may help prevent virus transmission “since you cannot spread the virus if you don’t have an infection.” The findings are based on COVID-19 tests performed every two weeks that detect infections regardless of whether someone is showing symptoms.
Broader testing in the overall population showed that three to four weeks after the first dose, the Pfizer vaccine was 57% effective in preventing symptomatic illness in people over 80 years of age. That rose to more than 85% after the second dose. In general, hospital admissions and death should be reduced by more than 75% after one dose of the vaccine, Public Health England said.
The agency said it is still monitoring the impact of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but “early signs in the data suggest it provides good protection from the first dose.”
UK regulators authorized widespread use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Dec. 30, nearly a month after approving the Pfizer vaccine.
The study in Scotland was conducted by scientists from the University of Edinburgh, the University of Strathclyde and Public Health Scotland.
The preliminary findings were based on a comparison of people who had received one dose of vaccine and those who had not yet been vaccinated. The data was collected between December 8 and February 15, a period when 21% of the Scottish population received their first vaccination.
“These results are very encouraging and have given us good reasons to be optimistic for the future,” said Professor Aziz Sheikh, director of the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh. “We now have national evidence – nationwide – that vaccination protects against COVID-19 hospitalizations.”
About 650,000 people in Scotland received the Pfizer vaccine during the study period and 490,000 received the AstraZeneca injection, the Usher Institute said. Because hospitalization data was collected 28 days after vaccination, hospitalization data came from a subgroup of 220,000 people who received the Pfizer vaccine and 45,000 who received the AstraZeneca injection.
External experts said that while the findings in Scotland are encouraging, they should be interpreted with caution due to the nature of this type of observational study. In particular, relatively few people were hospitalized after receiving the vaccines during the study period.
Stephen Evans, professor of pharmaco-epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, urged those making political decisions about the pandemic to exercise caution.
“It will be important that euphoria, especially from political sources that do not understand the uncertainty in numerical values, does not lead to premature decisions,” he said. “Cautious optimism is warranted.”
Earlier this month, Israel reported encouraging results from people who received the Pfizer vaccine. Six weeks after vaccinations began for people over 60, there was a 41% drop in confirmed COVID-19 infections and a 31% drop in hospital admissions, according to the country’s Ministry of Health.
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