Covid-19 roundup: Re­al world da­ta sug­gest As­traZeneca vac­cine ef­fec­tive against Delta, Al­pha vari­ants; No­vavax hails pos­i­tive study on coro­n­avirus, flu shots com­bo

As­traZeneca’s Covid-19 vac­cine, which has been au­tho­rized for use in the EU and Japan among many coun­tries but not yet the US, has proved ef­fec­tive against the Delta vari­ant, the com­pa­ny an­nounced on Tues­day.

Re­al world da­ta from Pub­lic Health Eng­land showed that the vac­cine con­ferred high lev­els of pro­tec­tion against the vari­ant that orig­i­nat­ed in In­dia, as its 2 dos­es demon­strat­ed 92% ef­fi­ca­cy against hos­pi­tal­iza­tion due to this vari­ant. For the Al­pha vari­ant, which orig­i­nat­ed in the UK, the vac­cine spurred a 86% re­duc­tion in hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, with no deaths re­port­ed.

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