UPDATE: Federal health officials said early Tuesday that results from a U.S. trial of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine may have relied on “outdated information” that “may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data,” casting doubt on an announcement on Monday that had been seen as good news.
The results of a clinical trial of the two-shot coronavirus vaccine by AstraZeneca and Oxford University to be completely effective at protecting against severe cases of COVID-19. From the Washington Post:
The trials included 32,449 adult participants in all age groups, most of them in the United States. The volunteers received either two standard doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine or a placebo, at a four-week interval, the researchers said.
The scientists said the data show the vaccine is 79 percent effective against symptomatic covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 100 percent effective against severe illness.
There were five cases of severe illness in the trial, all of them in the group that received a placebo.
The independent monitoring board specifically looked for any evidence of possible blood clotting since that was raised as a possible issue in Europe. But the board found nothing in the data that suggested there was any increased risk of clotting. Read the full article here.
