Rapid responses are electronic comments to the editor. They enable our users to debate issues raised in articles published on bmj.com. A rapid response is first posted online. If you need the URL (web address) of an individual response, simply click on the response headline and copy the URL from the browser window. A proportion of responses will, after editing, be published online and in the print journal as letters, which are indexed in PubMed. Rapid responses are not indexed in PubMed and they are not journal articles. The BMJ reserves the right to remove responses which are being wilfully misrepresented as published articles.
In vaccine trial press releases, much is made of the claim that vaccinated participants do NOT end up in hospital, e.g. a recent report from AstraZeneca claims 100% avoidance of hospitalisation as a consequence of contracting Covid-19.
The draft report of this “real world” Scottish study covering 8th December 2020 to 13th February 2021 appears to show significant numbers of hospitalisations, e.g. 442 in total, including 110 for whom hospitalisation occurred at least 21 days AFTER having received an initial vaccination (curiously, ICU admissions are excluded?)
The study aspires to capture hospitalisation data for the entire population of Scotland, and at the time of the draft report, 1,137,775 persons are described as “vaccinated”. This is obviously a far higher number than the AstraZeneca and Pfizer trial participants combined. Nevertheless, I had derived great confidence from zero hospitalisation claims based on vaccine trials, and the Scotland study has rather dented my optimism.
Definitions for hospitalisation in the report are not straightforward, but ultimately, Is there a real issue here, or am I simply misinterpreting the figures?
"The results, available as a preprint, showed that four weeks after the first doses of the Pfizer BioNTech and Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines were administered the risk of hospitalisation from covid-19 fell by up to 85% (95% confidence interval 76 to 91) and 94% (95% CI 73 to 99), respectively."
but you don't mention that after three weeks, AND after five weeks, the effectiveness is significantly lower.
So, while your article is technically correct, it is quite misleading.
Re: Covid-19: First doses of vaccines in Scotland led to a substantial fall in hospital admissions
Dear Editor,
In vaccine trial press releases, much is made of the claim that vaccinated participants do NOT end up in hospital, e.g. a recent report from AstraZeneca claims 100% avoidance of hospitalisation as a consequence of contracting Covid-19.
The draft report of this “real world” Scottish study covering 8th December 2020 to 13th February 2021 appears to show significant numbers of hospitalisations, e.g. 442 in total, including 110 for whom hospitalisation occurred at least 21 days AFTER having received an initial vaccination (curiously, ICU admissions are excluded?)
The study aspires to capture hospitalisation data for the entire population of Scotland, and at the time of the draft report, 1,137,775 persons are described as “vaccinated”. This is obviously a far higher number than the AstraZeneca and Pfizer trial participants combined. Nevertheless, I had derived great confidence from zero hospitalisation claims based on vaccine trials, and the Scotland study has rather dented my optimism.
Definitions for hospitalisation in the report are not straightforward, but ultimately, Is there a real issue here, or am I simply misinterpreting the figures?
Competing interests: No competing interests