COVID-19 hospitalizations fall with single vaccine shot: Study

LONDON The Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines substantially reduce the risk of hospitalization for the novel coronavirus patients after the first dose, a study has found. The study carried out on patients who contracted COVID-19 after receiving a single dose of the double-jab vaccination in Scotland suggests that the risk of hospitalization due to the virus drop by up to 85% with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 94% with AstraZeneca/Oxford four weeks after the shot. Based on real vaccinations, the study involved data obtained from the entire Scottish population of 5.4 million, which were then analyzed by experts from the universities of Edinburgh, Strathclyde, Aberdeen, Glasgow and St Andrew's as well as the Public Health Scotland (PHS). "These results are very encouraging and have given us great reasons to be optimistic for the future," Lead researcher Professor Aziz Sheikh said. "We now have national evidence - across an entire country - that vaccination provides protection against COVID-19 hospitalisations."