The government’s first efficacy against the Pfizer BioNTech coronavirus vaccine is very meticulous.
Israel, which has already given a first dose to about a quarter of its population, warned that it could be up to 33% effective after the first injection.
However, it has been revealed that it is likely to protect against the more contagious variant of the coronavirus that has been identified in the UK, and which has helped clear up cases.
Low initial efficacy can have implications for the UK vaccine strategy, which focuses on giving as many people as possible an initial dose before giving the booster up to 12 weeks thereafter.
Look: Pfizer vaccine looks effective against British variant
In an interview with Sky News, Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said between day 10 after the first dose and 21 days after, it was ‘much more like 89%’ in the studies.
However, he warned that things are “rarely as good as clinical trials when one is working in practice.”
“It probably won’t be as high as in practice, but I do not think it will be as low as the figures you just gave,” he told Sky’s Q&A.
“We have to look at this very carefully, we just have to keep measuring and understanding.”
Later on Wednesday, a Downing Street spokesman insisted that the decision to give a second slap after twelve weeks comes from the available data, which shows that the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine is 89% effective in 15 to 21 days. after the first dose of COVID-19. .
“But again, I want to point out what the medical experts and scientific advisors have said before about the fact that, after receiving the first dose, it takes a while before your body builds up immunity,” the spokesman said.
“You have no immunity immediately after taking the first dose, but once again we have explained why we do the doses as we are, and that is to protect as many people as possible as quickly as possible.”
Data are insufficient to say that UK vaccine policy is wrong
Reuters reports that Israel is working with Pfizer to provide data on the vaccine.
Professor Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the reports from Israel were “insufficient to provide evidence that current UK policy on postponing the second dose of vaccines is at all wrong”. .
“It does not make sense to compare the effectiveness of an observational study of this kind, which is subject to many biases, with the effectiveness obtained from randomized trials,” he said.
The professor added that more robust data needs to be collected before a policy is changed to the way vaccines are given.
Vaccines do not do enough hard work ‘
Sir Patrick has warned that cases of coronavirus should drop before the government thinks about facilitating the closure.
He said vaccines were not yet doing enough “heavy work” to give the government reason to lift restrictions, but said there was “light at the end of the tunnel”.
Officials hope to give COVID-19 the most vulnerable to COVID-19 – about 15 million people – a dose by February 15, and there are reports that the government wants to ease the restrictions against Easter.
More than 4.2 million first doses were dispensed, and 450,000 seconds were provided.
“The advice at the moment is that vaccines at the moment will not bother us, nowhere near,” Sir Patrick said.
‘I’m afraid it’s about the restrictive measures we all live by and continue to do.
‘The numbers at the moment are nowhere near where they should be; they have to go much further – we have to make sure we stick to it.
‘You’m going for a walk in the park or something, life seems normal; if you work in a hospital, you will see that life does not look normal at all.
“This is a very difficult, dangerous situation we are in, and we need to bring the numbers down, so I do not see the release of these measures in the short term being a sensible thing to do.”
Look: What’s Long COVID?