What the Lancet study tells us about the Oxford vaccine

While the Pfizer vaccine became the first to be used in a public vaccination programme on Tuesday, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine team became the first to publish their results in a peer-reviewed journal, the Lancet.

As the press release announcing the results explained, the overall efficacy rate of the Oxford vaccine was measured at 70 per cent, but that concealed a large difference between different arms of the trial.

When people were given two standard doses of the vaccine, its efficacy rate was only 62.1 per cent. Yet intriguingly, in one group which was given a half dose followed by a standard dose, the vaccine had an efficacy rate of 90 per cent. The Oxford vaccine team could not explain this difference and the Lancet paper says there is ‘a possibility that chance might play a part’.

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