The Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines for COVID-19 are highly effective in reducing severe coronavirus infection among people aged 70 years and above, according to a study.
The research, posted as a pre-print and yet to be peer-reviewed, estimated the effect of both the COVID-19 vaccines on laboratory confirmed symptomatic disease in individuals aged 70 years or older in England.
The researchers, including those from Public Health England (PHE), compared the rate of hospitalisation and deaths in confirmed COVID-19 patients aged over 80 who were vaccinated more than 14 days before testing positive, with unvaccinated cases.
Data suggests that in the over 80s, a single dose of either vaccine is more than 80% effective at preventing hospitalisation, around 3 to 4 weeks after the jab, PHE said in a statement.
Evidence for the Pfizer vaccine suggests that it leads to 83% reduction in deaths from COVID-19, it said.
