In his letter (22 September) Bill Ashford states incorrectly that the AstraZeneca vaccine has an effectiveness of only 64 per cent. In a real life study in England of 156,930 adults aged 70 and over published recently in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the authors concluded a single dose of either AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine was 80 per cent effective in preventing admission to hospital. They concluded that ‘Vaccination with either one dose of BNT162b2 or ChAdOx1-S was associated with a significant reduction in symptomatic COVID-19 in older adults, and with further protection against severe disease. Both vaccines showed similar effects’.
Doesn’t sound to me as if AstraZeneca is ‘cattle fodder’.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
