How Does AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 Vaccine Compare With Pfizer-BioNTech?

Britain on Wednesday became the first country to approve AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s home-grown UK COVID-19 vaccine, adding an easy-to-manage shot to the arsenal of a nation desperate for pandemic relief.

Even so, scientists – and regulators in Europe, following the Brexit divorce – are skeptical, given confusion over trial results earlier that left experts questioning the robustness of the data.

HOW DOES THE ASTRAZENECA SHOT’S EFFICACY STACK UP TO OTHERS?

The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine’s efficacy in preventing symptomatic infections was 70.4%, according to interim data, after 30 of 5,807 people who got the two-dose vaccine developed COVID-19, compared with 101 of 5,829 people who got a placebo.

That compares with the 95% efficacy of the two-shot vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech, the other vaccine approved in Britain.

While efficacy with any dose after one dose was pegged at 52.7%, the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) regulator also said an…