Individuals infected with Covid-19’s delta variant, first detected in India, are more than twice as likely to end up in the hospital than with the alpha variant identified in the United Kingdom. last year.
Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and AstraZeneca do offer protection against delta, researchers said Monday. They found the vaccine shot made by Pfizer and partner BioNTech SE offered better protection in a large study from Scotland.
The findings presented in a research letter published in The Lancet come as U.K. officials wrestle with whether to delay a lift in covid-19 pandemic restrictions as the delta variant spreads.
Jim McMenamin, the Covid-19 incident director at Public Health Scotland, said at a media briefing, “We need to encourage everyone to come forward and take up their offer of vaccination to ensure that they have had both of their doses.’s
Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh, Strathclyde, and Public Health Scotland, found that Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine offered 92% protection against the alpha variant and 79% against the delta one 14 days after the second dose. That compared with 73% and 60% protection for the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. The authors warned that the coronavirus vaccine comparison should be interpreted with caution due to the observational nature of the data.
The study covered a demographic distribution of Covid cases in Scotland from April 1 to June 6. Researchers said a more complete analysis from these results would be constructed once it was combined with similar studies from the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
