A new study, not yet peer reviewed, involved about 2,000 people who were on average 31 years old. But Prof Sarah Gilbert, Oxford lead vaccine developer, said vaccines should still protect against severe disease. She said developers were likely to have a modified Oxford jab by the autumn to combat the South Africa variant.Meanwhile, vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi told the BBC’s Andrew Marr that a booster in the autumn and annual vaccines could be required to combat variants.
“What that is looking like is that we may not be reducing the total number of cases but there’s still protection in that case against deaths, hospitalisations and severe disease.” She added: “That’s really important for healthcare systems, even if we are having mild and asymptomatic infections, to prevent people going into hospital with COVID-19 would have a major effect.
Source: Healthcare Press (healthcarepress.net)