Vaccinated people three times less likely to get Delta variant in UK study

New research from the UK provides the clearest indication to date of how well fully vaccinated people are protected against the Delta variant of the coronavirus. Based on ongoing surveillance data, researchers estimate that vaccines developed by Pfizer / BioNTech and University of Oxford / AstraZeneca are 50-60% effective in preventing Delta infection, including asymptomatic cases. . Although the results indicate that vaccines can still limit the transmission of Delta, they also reflect a substantial decline in their ability to prevent any infection, in relation to their strength against old strains of the virus.

The new data is courtesy of the REACT-1 study, a study In progressg project led by researchers at Imperial College London to monitor the spread of the pandemic in the UK. As part of the study, volunteers are recruited at random from the general population and regularly take home swab tests for the virus. This latest round of tests involved around 100,000 people in England, who were tested between June 24 and July 12 this year. By this time, Delta had become the dominant strain circulating in the UK.

During this time, according to the researchers, about 0.63% of the volunteers became infected, a in 158 – a level of community spread not seen by the study since the previous one peaks in October and January. But those who were fully vaccinated were three times less likely to test positive than those who were not vaccinated. Based on these data, scientists at REACT-1 believe that complete vaccination with either of these two planes is between 50% and 60% effective at preventing infection (for some reason, efficacy is not broken down by vaccine type).

The results are very different from those of other studies in the UK and elsewhere, which have valued that the Pfizer vaccine is approximately 88% effective against Delta disease; and that the AstraZeneca vaccine is approximately 67% effective. These studies only tracked cases where people become visibly ill, while the REACT-1 study tries to account for all infections caused by the virus, including those that don’t cause symptoms.

Some recent research has suggested that Delta is more likely to break through and cause infection in vaccinated people and that infected vaccinated people may then have a similar viral load initially to that of unvaccinated people, raising concerns that they may also be as contagious as unvaccinated people. But this new research has actually shown that vaccinated people have lower viral loads on average, while other studies have find that vaccinated people clear their infection more quickly, thus limiting their window of transmission.

AOverall, it’s a good sign that vaccines still significantly reduce a person’s chances of spreading the virus to others, even though Delta has taken over. At the same time, Delta’s infection prevention estimates are significantly lower than those taken in the past. The Pfizer and Modern mRNA vaccines, in particular, have been previously found to prevent more than 90% of all infections, infected vaccines have a much lower viral load. So while these vaccines resist the worst effects of Delta, the best-The case scenario of vaccinated people having almost complete protection against the virus is no longer realistic.

“These results confirm our previous data showing that two doses of a vaccine offer good protection against infection. However, we can also see that there is always a risk of infection, because no vaccine is 100% effective, and we know that some people who have been doubly vaccinated can still get sick with the virus, ”said Paul Elliott, director. of the REACT program at Imperial’s. School of Public Health, in a declaration of college.

Although the UK is coming down from its last, Delta-fueled pandemic peak, the United States is currently in the midst of a. States like Florida are now know their highest levels of pandemic-related hospitalizations, as most states report daily increases in cases. The country’s decent but not high vaccination rate will prevent much of the potential damage from Delta, but not all.