An Oxford University study has found that the coronavirus vaccines work well against the Indian variant, raising hopes that Britain could avoid a new wave of deaths.
Early findings from the urgent laboratory study into the B.1.617.2 strain show that the vaccine suffers only a small loss of protection.
Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca doses create enough antibodies to neutralise the highly contagious strain and significantly diminish the risk of hospital admissions and death. The breakthrough work was revealed by Sir John Bell, Oxford’s emeritus professor of medicine.
In a second intervention, Bell, Britain’s leading immunologist and a member of the government’s vaccine taskforce, also warned against foreign holidays for any Britons this summer.
He insisted there remained a significant risk they could import fresh mutant strains
