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How effective is one Covid vaccine dose?

Calculating the protection given by the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine.

Would it make more sense to vaccinate more people by delaying the second doses of vaccines for Covid 19? That is a debate going on at the moment. The UK has decided to delay the second dose for up to three months.

We recently received an email from a listener who says he first heard that the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine was 52% effective after the first dose and 95% after the second. Now he has been told that the first dose now has an effectiveness of 90%. Which is correct? Tim Harford looks into it.

Plus, is a new Variant first spotted in the UK really 70% more transmissible than previous variants?

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Kate Lamble and Charlotte McDonald

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9 minutes

Last on

Mon 18 Jan 2021 10:50GMT
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