‘2 jabs effective on Delta’

Two doses of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are nearly as effective against the highly transmissible Delta coronavirus variant as they are against the previously dominant Alpha variant, a study published on Wednesday showed.

Officials say vaccines are highly effective against the Delta variant, now the dominant variant worldwide, though the study reiterated that one vaccine shot is not enough for high protection.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, confirms headline findings from Public Health England in May about the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca, based on real-world data.

Wednesday’s study found two doses of Pfizer’s shot were 88 percent effective at preventing symptomatic disease from the Delta variant, compared with 93.7 percent against the Alpha variant.

Two shots of AstraZeneca’s vaccine were 67 percent effective against the Delta variant and 74.5 percent effective against the Alpha variant.

The full study published on Wednesday found that one dose of Pfizer’s shot was 36 percent effective, and one dose of AstraZeneca’s vaccine was around 30 percent effective.