In total, 24.6m people had received their first AstraZeneca vaccine by June 30, the latest week for which data is available, and 21.5m had been fully vaccinated. Officials are administering 800,000 second doses of the British vaccine each week, which could see the remaining AstraZeneca patients protected by the end of this month. It comes after the Department of Health said that another 96,000 first and 175,000 second doses were dished out on Thursday. Even after one dose, vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease was around 60 per cent and did not fall substantially with age. This rises from 4 per cent after a first dose, showing the importance of a second dose.

Source: The Nation July 10, 2021 08:26 UTC