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EU leaders’ vaccine sniping backfires

Emmanuel Macron (photo: Getty)

The eyes of the world have been on Britain’s vaccination programme in recent months, as the UK government embarked on a dramatic push to get our population inoculated by prioritising first doses. During this time, the naysayers have been plentiful – with some UK commentators and plenty of politicians abroad keen to cast doubt over the strategy.

What everyone agreed was that time would tell. But now it appears we have promising results, with a new pre-print of a study published by Public Health England today. The study shows that just one dose of both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines has significantly reduced Covid-19 infections among those aged 70 and over. And, the study suggests that one dose of either vaccine is more than 80 per cent effective at preventing hospitalisations among the over-80s, three to four weeks after the shot.

This is, of course, very welcome news for the many vulnerable people who have already received their first shot in Britain.

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