Read this from the head of the research. I posted it upstream but so important people don’t speculate and read it from the scientists themselves. This is a game changer.
Prof Sarah Gilbert of Oxford University’s Jenner Institute, who led the research, told the Guardian that people in both dose groups were protected in the trials from severe illness after just one jab.
“I have no qualms about using the high dose/high dose regimen, which is what the majority of people in the trial have had,” she said.
“It’s really important to note that within 21 days of the first vaccination, nobody was admitted to hospital with Covid or had severe Covid and that’s just after one dose – that’s after any one dose in these trials – no admissions to hospital, and that’s a really major result for public health benefits.”
Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Moderna vaccines have reported 95% efficacy in their trials, but Gilbert said it was important to see how well the vaccines did after six months or a year. “It’s great to see high level of efficacy but that’s not the final answer on any of the vaccines really because it’s something that we need to accumulate data on over time,” she said.
There is no evidence yet on the durability of protection from the other two vaccines, both made with novel mRNA technology, whereas Oxford used an adenovirus vector – a technology that has been shown to provoke a long-term response, she said. “We shouldn’t get too hung up on comparing these early numbers.”