Tag Archives: Coronavirus insights

Jim Barber/Shutterstock Jameel Inal, University of Hertfordshire When the efficacy of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was announced in late 2020, there was some confusion. The overall efficacy of the vaccine at stopping people developing symptomatic COVID-19, two weeks after the second dose, was 70%. But this wasn’t the whole picture. This figure was based on averaging the results from two groups. …

Tom Wang/Shutterstock Trish Greenhalgh, University of Oxford England is deep into its third lockdown, yet the daily tally of new COVID cases and deaths remains sickeningly high. As Chris Whitty, the country’s chief medical officer, said recently, more needs to be done to bring the pandemic under control. Masks, which when worn correctly are highly effective in reducing transmission, are …

Shutterstock/dencg Fiona Carroll, Cardiff Metropolitan University A senior doctor in charge of the NHS anti-disinformation campaign has said that language and cultural barriers could be causing people from ethnic minorities to reject the COVID-19 vaccine. Dr Harpreet Sood told the BBC it was “a big concern” and officials were working hard to reach different groups “to correct so much fake …

University of Oxford Tonia Thomas, University of Oxford and Rachel Colin-Jones, University of Oxford The pandemic is only a year old, but we already have multiple vaccines available to fight COVID-19 – including the vaccine developed by the team we’re part of at the University of Oxford. With our partner AstraZeneca, we have submitted both interim efficacy data and safety …

Dryvax, smallpox vaccine with bifurcated needle. James Gathany Content Providers/CDC Public Health Image Library Caitjan Gainty, King’s College London and Agnes Arnold-Forster, University of Bristol Smallpox killed countless millions – 300 million people in the 20th century alone – before it was finally declared eradicated on May 8 1980. It was a momentous day, marking what the current director general …

fizkes/Shutterstock Frances Williams, King’s College London For most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”. Scientists are still researching long COVID. It’s not well understood, though …

Prostock-studio/Shutterstock Alessandro Siani, University of Portsmouth The Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has been authorised for use in the UK, meaning that millions more vaccine doses can now be delivered in the country. This will speed up progress towards achieving widespread immunity to the coronavirus. However, since the start of the pandemic – and particularly since vaccines for COVID-19 started being developed …

/Shutterstock Michael Head, University of Southampton The UK has become the first country to authorise the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for public use, with roll-out to start in the first week of 2021. This vaccine is the second to be authorised in the UK – following the Pfizer vaccine. The British government has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine, …

Eugene Lu/Shutterstock Sarah Pitt, University of Brighton There are now quite a few COVID-19 vaccines in the pipeline, but two seem to be making promising progress: the one designed by the US biotechnology company Moderna, and the one developed by the University of Oxford in collaboration with AstraZeneca. In both cases, the research teams have built on their previous experience …

Girts Ragelis/Shutterstock Jimmy Whitworth, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine A new, potentially more infectious variant of the coronavirus is thought to be behind rising COVID-19 case numbers in southern parts of the UK. Fearing this version of the virus could spread out of control, the government has introduced a stricter level of restrictions across much of England: Tier …