Pfizer vaccine 88% effective against delta variant: study

Recipients of two doses of the Pfizer vaccine have strong protection against the delta variant that has been linked to rising coronavirus numbers in the United States, according to a study released this week.

The study, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that Pfizer was 88% effective against the delta variant and 93.7% effective against the alpha variant.

The study looked at the results of more than 38,000 sequenced tests.

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“Overall, we found high levels of vaccine efficacy against symptomatic disease with the delta variant after receiving two doses,” the study authors wrote in their report.

Those who received only a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine had considerably lower protection: the vaccine was only 30.7% effective against delta for those who received only one injection, according to the report.

The same study also looked at the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is used in Britain. This product was found to be 67% effective against the delta variant and 74.55% against the alpha variant, according to the report.

Pfizer’s results match those of a previous study by Public Health England, which also showed that two doses offered 88% protection against delta. But Israel’s health ministry claimed earlier this month that Pfizer offered only 64% protection against the delta, according to its observations.

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But the Israeli study confirmed that the Pfizer product was very effective in preventing severe coronavirus symptoms and hospitalization, with results exceeding 90%.

The delta variant is more than 200% more transmissible than the original coronavirus, health officials said.