(Bloomberg) -- Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and AstraZeneca Plc are highly effective after two doses at preventing hospitalization of those infected with the delta variant, underscoring the urgency in getting people fully protected, according to health authorities in England.
The Pfizer and BioNTech SE shot is 96% effective against hospitalization after two doses, while the AstraZeneca and University of Oxford Covid inoculation is 92% effective, according to an analysis announced Monday by Public Health England. Those results are comparable with the protection offered against the alpha variant, which first emerged in Britain, the data show.
The U.K. is in a race to vaccinate its population as the variant first detected in India spreads. Prime Minister Boris Johnson pushed back his plan to lift England's restrictions for at least another four weeks to try to prevent thousands of additional deaths. Although Covid cases have been rising rapidly, fueled by the highly transmissible variant, the latest results will help ease concerns over increased pressure on hospitals.
“The vaccines are the most important tool we have against Covid-19,” Mary Ramsay, PHE's head of immunization, said in a statement. “It is absolutely vital to get both doses as soon as they are offered to you, to gain maximum protection against all existing and emerging variants.”
Findings in May showed the effectiveness of both vaccines against symptomatic disease from the delta variant was 33% three weeks after the first dose. That study found the Pfizer shot was 88% effective two weeks after the second dose, and that two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were 60% effective.
Further work is underway to establish the level of protection against death from the delta variant, but it's expected to be high, as with other variants, officials said. The analysis included more than 14,000 cases of the delta variant – 166 of whom were hospitalized – between April 12 and June 4.
Researchers in Scotland earlier found that the Pfizer 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 Astra vaccine. The authors warned that the vaccine comparison should be interpreted with caution due to the observational nature of the data.
People infected with the delta variant, meanwhile, are more than twice as likely to end up in the hospital than with the alpha variant, according to those findings presented in a research letter published in The Lancet.
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