By Tony O’Riley-
Health secretary, Matt Hancock has announced the jabs currently being used in the UK have cut hospitalisations in the over 70s by 80 per cent.
Hancock told a Downing Street press conference that the data showed that “a single shot of either the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine or of the Pfizer vaccine works against severe infection among the over-70s with a more than 80% reduction in hospitalisations”.
The data suggests that protection against symptomatic COVID in those over 70, four weeks after the first jab, ranged between 57-61% for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 60-73% for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
The health secretary said the number of new coronavirus cases is falling but the rate of decline has slowed, urging people to “keep sticking to the rules, let’s not blow it now
He also stressed that a “massive effort” was under way to prevent the new variant spreading further and said that Public Health England (PHE) “don’t think there is a threat to the wider public”.
Mr Hancock also said that the fact that the number of hospital admissions was falling faster than that of cases, particularly among the older age groups who were given a jab first is a sign that the vaccine is working
The rate of decline in deaths among the older age groups is also faster than in the under 80s, the health secretary said.
“This shows, in the real world, across the UK right now that the vaccine is helping both to protect the NHS and to save lives,” he said.
However, Professor Van-Tam said “there’s a lot to look forwards to”, the “problem isn’t fixed yet”.
“It’s very tempting to just go, ‘Right, we’ve seen the results, that means the problem is fixed’,” he said.
“The problem isn’t fixed yet but we definitely have identified a way of fixing the problem and the early data show us how to do that and where to advance from here.”
PHE on Sunday announced that six cases of the concerning P.1 variant, first detected in the Brazilian city of Manaus, had been confirmed in Britain – three in England and three in Scotland. The deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said the latest data on vaccines showed the decision to prioritise a mass rollout of first doses had “undoubtably saved a large number of lives”.
Prof Anthony Harnden of the JCVI, said: “These real world results from Public Health England demonstrate a very good effect from both vaccines after the first dose.
“The Covid vaccination strategy was designed to prevent as many deaths as quickly as possible. The bold decision to vaccinate more older people by delaying the second dose has undoubtedly saved a large number of lives.”