COVID crisis over? Vaccines working on virus variants

Key points from the UK’s COVID Symptom Study:

No vaccines contain COVID-19.
Pfizer better than AZ in infection risk reduction after one shot but both good:

90% reduction in hospitalisations.
“Definite immunity” still a work in progress.
Variants are “clobbered” by the second dose of vaccines.
South African version definitely and probably Brazilian.
Single-dose still diminishes symptoms of variants.
COVID is not as mutatable as flu and it may not become it.
Side effects lower than in trials. AZ higher but not a concern. AZ has more side effects first dose. Pfizer more on second:

No relationship between side effects and vaccine efficacy.

Full video here. Reassuring stuff:

Share

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.