Study Shows Vaccines Work Against Indian Variant as Cases Decrease in Greece

The Indian coronavirus variant can be suppressed by vaccines that have already been put to use according to a study published on Saturday in England. Meanwhile, Greece recorded 877 new coronavirus cases on Sunday.

Current coronavirus vaccines are effective against Indian variant

The UK Government Public Health Service announced on Saturday that vaccines that are already being circulated are almost as effective in protecting against the Indian variant of the coronavirus as they are for other strains.

The study, which was completed by public health authorities in England, found that both the Pfizer/BioNTech and the AstraZeneca vaccines offer a good amount of protection against the Indian variant.

The study, which was conducted between April 5 and May 16, found that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was 88 percent effective at preventing symptomatic disease from the Indian variant once an individual was fully vaccinated. “Fully vaccinated” in this context means that a person has received two doses of the vaccine, and two full weeks have passed since their last shot.

This result is very encouraging, as the Pfizer vaccine has been found to be 93 percent effective against other variants.

During the same study period, the AstraZeneca vaccine was found to be 60 percent effective against the new strain of the coronavirus, compared with 66 percent against the British variant first detected in Kent.

Additionally, there is a certain level of immunity which can be reached simply through getting one dose of the vaccine. The two vaccines studied seem to be 33 percent effective against symptomatic disease caused by the Indian variant three weeks after only the first dose, compared with about 50 percent against the British variant.

Coronavirus cases decrease in Greece on Sunday

Greece is continuing on a path of steadily decreasing cases even as the country opens up to tourism. Health authorities in Greece confirmed a total of 877 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, a decrease from the 1,505 diagnosed on Saturday. Only six of these new cases were identified at entry points to the country, the National Public Health Organization (EODY) stated.

Greece has confirmed a total of 389,804 infections since the beginning of the pandemic. A total of 33 infections diagnosed over the last seven days were related to travel from abroad and 2,319 were linked to other confirmed cases.

There were 38 deaths of people suffering with the coronavirus recorded in the last 24 hours, which represents one less tragedy than those recorded on the previous day. This brings the total of all those who lost their lives in Greece since the beginning of the pandemic to 11,772. Of this total, 95.2 percent also suffered from an underlying condition and/or were aged 70 or above.

A total of 569 patients are now on ventilators in hospitals across Greece, a decrease from the 586 patients who were undergoing the invasive procedure on Friday. Their median age is 67 years; 84 percent suffer from an underlying condition and/or are aged 70 or over.

Another 2,348 individuals have been discharged from ICUs since the pandemic began.

In addition, 229 Covid-19 patients were admitted to hospitals in Greece in the last 24 hours, showing a marked decrease in hospitalisations of 14.23 percent from yesterday. The average number of hospital admissions of patients with Covid-19 over the last seven days was 287.

The median age of all those recently diagnosed new infections is 44 years while the median age of the deceased being 78.