Vaccinated individuals are three times less likely to contract the Delta variant of the novel coronavirus that’s currently wreaking havoc across the world.?
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This is according to a REACT-1 study (reported first by LiveScience) led by researchers from the Imperial College, London to look at the spread of the pandemic in the UK. The study looked at 100,000 individuals who had taken COVID-19 swab tests at home between June 24 and July 12.
In that sample group, 527 individuals tested positive for the coronavirus and 254 were genetically analysed. Genetic sequencing of the samples revealed that they were the highly transmissible delta variant.?
After adjusting for factors like age, they saw that people who received both doses were 59 percent less likely to test positive for the coronavirus with symptoms. The findings of the study are yet to be peer-reviewed and have been published in a preprint server.?
These results are different from other studies conducted in the UK that have shown that the Pfizer vaccine is a good 88 percent effective against the Delta variant, whereas AstraZeneca is around 67 percent effective.?
These studies only looked at cases where people become evidently sick, on the other hand, the REACT-1 study looked at all and any kinds of infections caused by the virus, including the asymptomatic kind.?
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Another study conducted in Israel found that efficacy for Pfizer vaccine against the Delta variant went down to 39 percent while being 88 percent effective against hospitalisation and 91 percent protective against severe illness.?
This study also found that individuals who were vaccinated had a smaller viral load, indicating that these individuals will also spread less virus. This is contradicting the other data that revealed (in an internal CDC presentation) that delta variant caused similar viral loads in the unvaccinated and in vaccinated people who test positive.
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Steven Riley, a professor of infectious disease dynamics at Imperial College London, said in the statement, "The delta variant is known to be highly infectious, and as a result, we can see from our data and others' that breakthrough infections are happening in fully vaccinated people.”
He added, “We need to better understand how infectious fully vaccinated people who become infected are, as this will help to better predict the situation in the coming months, and our findings are contributing to a more comprehensive picture of this."