Having two doses of a Covid vaccine is still effective at protecting against the Delta variant of coronavirus that is now dominant in the UK, according to the largest study of its kind.
The research, led by Oxford University and the Office for National Statistics, found that the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab offers the same level of protection as the Pfizer/BioNTech jab after four to five months, despite initially being less effective.
Although Pfizer’s high initial effectiveness of 93 per cent dropped over time, the AstraZeneca vaccine’s effectiveness remained largely the same at about 71 per cent, the researchers said.
It came as a government scientific adviser warned that current high numbers of cases and deaths were “very worrying” as the UK heads towards the winter, when transmission of the virus is expected to be higher.
“We're going into the winter with really very high levels of infection out there in the community and we just don't really know what's going to happen,” Professor Peter Openshaw told Times Radio.
