It looks like the UK was counting on 10 million AZ doses from India that aren't coming next month, so that's potentially a greater issue than the EU vaccine ban. On the other hand, they are still on track to vaccinate all groups accounting for 99% of mortality (and 33% of the remaining population has had the disease) so eh, the most important work is done.
Also this is interesting, a test made with hamsters (which have a respiratory system very like ours) and the AZ vaccine vs. the British / South African variants:
The vaccinated hamsters had 100% protection against lung infection (notice the difference in tissue pathology score comparing the control group vs. the vaccinated one) despite a ~9.5 times decrease in neutralizing antibody activity against the South African variant. One of the vaccinated hamsters didn't even detectable antibodies against the SA variant beforehand. That's cellular immunity at work for you.
Last edited by haxxiy - on 17 March 2021