NEW: fresh data from trials in Brazil, South Africa and the UK shows the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is highly effective with a 12 week gap between doses.

Efficacy is in fact much higher with a 12 week interval than a shorter gap

Story by @donatopmancini: https://www.ft.com/content/de00fe75-9ba1-4be7-8cf1-6e9fa55f09ce?l
The data also show that a single dose delivers strong protection that — crucially — does not wane quickly.

12 weeks after the first dose, efficacy is still well above 70%.
And perhaps most importantly of all, the data found that not even one recipient of the vaccine became severely ill with Covid-19 requiring hospitalisation

Every single participant who was admitted to hospital with Covid-19 was in the placebo group

Story: https://www.ft.com/content/de00fe75-9ba1-4be7-8cf1-6e9fa55f09ce?a
Full paper here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3777268

And a big thanks to co-lead-author @MerrynVoysey for talking me through some of the finer points.

Scientists who respond instantly to DMs on deadline are possibly my favourite people in the world 🤓😀🙏
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