English health authority says AstraZeneca shot gives "reassuring" immune responses in elderly

AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine provides reassuring immune responses in elderly people even if data on the precise level of protection is patchy, Public Health England said on Thursday after Germany recommended the shot was only given to under-65s. "Both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are safe and provide high levels of protection against COVID-19, particularly against severe disease," Mary Ramsay, Head of Immunisations at PHE said in a statement after the German recommendation.

"There were too few cases in older people in the AstraZeneca trials to observe precise levels of protection in this group, but data on immune responses were very reassuring."