The AstraZeneca vaccine can help stave off serious Covid-19 illness in older people for longer, according to the head of the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceuticals company, as he noted that the UK has had fewer hospitalisations than Europe recently.
The vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford university has been used extensively across the UK, where the number of people admitted to hospital has continued to fall even as infections are increasing.
But it was used much less in Europe, where a surge in infections and hospitalisations has put health services on high alert. Austria, where hospitalisations are at 28.7 people per 100,000 compared with the UK’s 12 per 100,000, this week reimposed a full lockdown to help slow the spread of coronavirus.