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The Covid-19 vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca PLC was found to be as much as 90% effective in preventing infections without serious side effects in a large clinical trial, the partners said Monday. AstraZeneca said there were no serious safety events related to the vaccine and it was well tolerated across different dosing regimens. Efficacy ranged from 62% to 90% depending on the dosage given, the partners said. AstraZeneca and Oxford said the average efficacy in the analysis was 70%. (Strasburg, 11/23)

One dosing regimen showed an effectiveness of 90% when trial participants received a half dose, followed by a full dose at least one month apart. The other showed 62% efficacy when given as two full doses at least one month apart. The combined analysis from both dosing regimens found average vaccine effectiveness of 70%. No hospitalizations or severe cases of the disease were reported in participants receiving the vaccine. (Meredith, 11/23)

No serious safety events related to the vaccine have been confirmed and it was well tolerated across both dosing regimens, AstraZeneca said. “This vaccine’s efficacy and safety confirm that it will be highly effective against COVID-19 and will have an immediate impact on this public health emergency,” Pascal Soriot, Astra’s chief executive, said in a statement.

The pressure was on AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford after stunning Covid-19 vaccine trial results from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc., and the U.K. partners delivered, even if they couldn’t match the data from the two front-runners. Scientists will now closely scrutinize the preliminary results. The report is significant because Astra and Oxford are taking a different approach from the one used by Pfizer and Moderna, and vaccine advocates say multiple shots will be needed to stop a contagion that’s killed almost 1.4 million people. Here’s what we know, and what the results could mean in the battle. (Kresge and Buckley, 11/23)

Trial successes from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. have buoyed hopes that a Covid-19 vaccine is coming soon. But much of the world, outside of rich nations like the U.S., is counting on another company’s shot to escape the crisis. Findings from the final stage of AstraZeneca Plc’s vaccine studies are due to be released shortly, and the stakes for lower- and middle-income nations are immense. The shot developed with the University of Oxford accounts for more than 40% of the supplies going to those countries, based on deals tracked by London-based research firm Airfinity Ltd. (Paton and Ring, 11/22)

The front-runners in the vaccine race seem to be working far better than anyone expected: Pfizer and BioNTech announced this week that their vaccine had an efficacy rate of 95 percent. Moderna put the figure for its vaccine at 94.5 percent. In Russia, the makers of the Sputnik vaccine claimed their efficacy rate was over 90 percent. ... From the headlines, you might well assume that these vaccines — which some people may receive in a matter of weeks — will protect 95 out of 100 people who get them. But that’s not actually what the trials have shown. Exactly how the vaccines perform out in the real world will depend on a lot of factors we just don’t have answers to yet — such as whether vaccinated people can get asymptomatic infections and how many people will get vaccinated. Here’s what you need to know about the actual effectiveness of these vaccines. (Zimmer, 11/20)