There are early signs that people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 may be able to transmit the Delta variant of the virus as easily as those who have not, scientists at Public Health England (PHE) said on Aug. 6.
Two doses of Pfizer or AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine are nearly as effective against the highly transmissible Delta coronavirus variant as they are against the previously dominant Alpha variant, a study published on July 21 showed.
Although there have been discussions about using different Covid-19 vaccines in combination, World Health Organization (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan warned against it, calling it a “dangerous trend.”
Britain said on July 7 the country would provide genomic sequencing support to Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan to help identify, assess and track new variants of the novel coronavirus.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is highly effective against the Delta variant of Covid-19, a Pfizer official in Israel said on June 24.
Covid-19 vaccines made by AstraZeneca and the Pfizer-BioNTech alliance remain broadly effective against Delta and Kappa variants of the Covid-19 causing virus that were first identified in India, according to a scientific study, underpinning a continued push to deliver the shots.
A double dose of Covid-19 vaccines is almost as effective against the fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus first identified in India as it is against Britain’s dominant strain, English health officials said on May 22.
Two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine are around 85 percent to 90 percent effective against symptomatic disease, Public Health England (PHE) said on May 20, citing an analysis of real-world data from the rollout of the shot.
Covid-19 vaccines deployed in England can cut transmission of the coronavirus in households by up to a half, data from Public Health England (PHE) showed on April 28, in addition to the protection the shots offer against symptomatic infection.
Public Health England (PHE) published real-world analyses of people in the U.K. who had received the first shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, with the data – which were published in The Lancet – showing that there was a decrease of about 70 percent in infections among healthcare workers after the first shot.
