Single dose of AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines cut death risk by 80%, says UK study

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Data from the rollout of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine shows one dose of the shot results in 80 per cent less risk of death from the infection, according to a Public Health England study released on Monday.</p>
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It also said protection against death from the Pfizer-BioNTech, vaccine rises from approximately 80 per cent after one dose to 97 per cent after two doses in its latest analysis.</p>
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PHE said this was the first study on protection against mortality from the AstraZeneca vaccine based on data from a real world setting.</p>
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The study looked at new symptomatic cases of Covid-19 between December and April and examined the vaccination status of people who died within 28 days of their positive test for the disease.</p>
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People who had a single dose of AstraZeneca vaccine were 55 per cent protected against death, with a figure of 44 per cent protection for a single dose of Pfizer, compared to unvaccinated people.</p>
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"Combined with the protection vaccines offer against becoming a case in the first place, this is equivalent to approximately 80 per cent protection against death in individuals vaccinated with a single dose of either vaccine," PHE said in a statement.</p>
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Protection against mortality from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine improved to 69 per cent for cases who had their second dose at least a week before they tested positive. Combined with the estimated protection from getting COVID-19 to start with, this is equivalent to an estimated 97 per cent protection, PHE said.</p>
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In another dataset, PHE said that it was estimated that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine reduces the risk of hospitalisation by 93 per cent for people over 80 years of age.</p>