Thank you for the question.
NACI has been monitoring global vaccine effectiveness against a number of variants of concern. We have seen recent evidence from the United Kingdom looking at the delta variant or B1.617.2. That variant does seem to respond very well to two doses of either Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine. In both cases when the second dose is provided, then you see a really strong improvement in protection. There is also some protection offered by the first dose of vaccine, as has been studied in the U.K.
This hasn't made its way into any advice from the NACI to the agency yet, but the committee has been monitoring that evidence closely. Obviously, it is a point of concern as that variant is emerging in Canada. The committee continues to study it. I believe it was somewhere in the 60% range for AstraZeneca. It is somewhere in the 80% range for the Pfizer vaccine.
I will note that's against symptomatic infection. We have not yet seen the evidence regarding how well those vaccines protect against severe outcomes like hospitalization and death. They are expected in general to give higher protection than what we get against symptomatic infection, as we've seen across a number of other vaccine-effectiveness studies. It's quite encouraging that these vaccines that we have access to and are using in Canada, once provided with that complete series, are expected to provide protection against the delta variant.
Thank you.