Proof one dose slashes illnesses

FEWER than 2 per cent of people hospitalised with Covid after being vaccinated developed symptoms three weeks after a jab, a study found.

Just 32 out of 2,000 who needed hospital treatment for coronavirus following a first dose are thought to have caught it once maximum immunity kicked in.

The remaining patients are likely to have developed symptoms in the week before or after being vaccinated.

Researchers from the international severe acute respiratory and emerging infections consortium looked at more than 74,000 hospital admissions between september and early March.

Of the just under 2,000 who had received the vaccine, they analysed how many days there were between getting the jab and Covid symptoms.

Professor Calum semple, a member of the sage advisory group who worked on the paper, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘This is really good real world data showing that this vaccine works and that one dose works really well.’

Just 2,004 Covid patients are now being treated by the Nhs – down from a peak of almost 40,000 in January. Admissions have dropped to around 200 a day.

some 33,139,742 first doses and 10,775,817 second doses have been given in the UK, meaning around one in five adults is fully vaccinated.