English study comes amid fall in hospital admissions, deaths in country Findings back those of Scottish study released last week LONDON: A single coronavirus jab can reduce the risk of hospital admission by more than 90 percent, according to a new study. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was shown to be more effective at reducing hospitalization than the Pfizer-BioNTech one. The report, which is the result of a large-scale English trial, is due to be released this month. It revealed that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is effective at preventing serious illnesses that can result from coronavirus. The results show that even those aged over 70 are less likely to need hospital treatment after receiving just a single jab. Health officials created up-to-date efficacy figures by comparing coronavirus hospital admission rates across England in people who have received a first dose in the country’s vaccine rollout, with those who have not. The new report draws similar conclusions to a study of coronavirus hospital admission rates in Scotland released last week. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh found that four weeks after an injection, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs reduced the risk of hospital admission by up to 85 percent and 94 percent, respectively. For people aged over 80 — the group most at risk of being admitted to hospital — a single jab can reduce hospitalization risk by 81 percent after four weeks, according to the combined results of the English and Scottish studies. The head of Oxford University’s vaccine project, Prof. Sarah Gilbert, praised the importance of the real-world data used in the new English study. “It provides evidence of the high effectiveness of both the Oxford-AstraZeneca and BioNTech-Pfizer vaccines in preventing hospitalization in people over the age of 80 after a single dose, supporting our confidence in using this vaccine in adults of all ages,” she said. The UK’s world-leading vaccine program has delivered initial jabs to about 20 million people, resulting in rapidly falling hospital admissions and virus deaths across all age groups in the country.