Reactions to a New Study of the AstraZeneca Vaccine

TIM HARFORD, ECONOMIST: Yes, early days, but it is encouraging, because I have been writing about the protective effects of the vaccine has made the conservative assumption that maybe it doesn’t do anything to actually prevent the spread of infection. Maybe it prevents people from getting sick, but still allows them to transmit. So, any extra news that says it also prevents infections from passing from one person to another, which is what this new preliminary data suggests, that’s extremely good news. That’s a real bonus.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And, quickly also on the spacing of the shot, I think this country is the only one who’s officially spacing much, much wider than other countries. And the good news on that is that it may even enhance AstraZeneca’s effectiveness. Of course, in the United States. Dr. Fauci is saying, rightly, that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines still need to be taken in their special three-week window. Talk to me a little bit about that.

HARFORD: Yes, so we don’t have good data — we don’t have any data on the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, exploring what would happen if you delayed the booster shot. I think it’s important to bear in mind that the reason that we have this three-week or four-week — it depends on which vaccine — but this very short delay before the booster shot wasn’t because people thought that is definitely the optimal timing. It’s because we were in a hurry. We’re trying to develop these vaccines at record speed. And the vaccinologists have done this. It’s an incredible achievement. So, they wanted to test the shortest possible timing of the booster shot. So, it doesn’t mean the booster won’t work after six weeks, or after 10 weeks or 12 weeks. It just means we don’t know. Now, I happen to know the British government has just begun — or just begun the process of starting a randomized trial into that. So, ideally, we are going to start learning about the effects of spacing out the booster shot and hopefully the rest of the world is going to going to find out from that.

AMANPOUR: Can I turn to you, Helen Rees, in South Africa, because the South African variant, as it’s being called, has come over here and elsewhere. And the medical profession and journalists and people are very concerned about it. What can you tell us about that? What do you know about it? And how is your vaccine rollout going in South Africa?

DR. HELEN REES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WITS REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND HIV INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND: Well, starting with the variant, South Africa is very fortunate, in that we have the capacity, from the laboratory point of view, to actually look at the virus and how it’s been changing. And what was picked up at the end of last year was that the virus indeed was changing. The virus does change all the time. And it mutates all the time. But the question is, do these changes mean anything?