With all the misinformation and conspiracy out there over vaccines and their effectiveness, we must rely on mainstream publications to give us the facts. So when German publication Handelsblatt reported that the AstraZeneca vaccine is only 8% effective for people over the age of 65, experts, as well as Oxford University (which hosted the trials) and AstraZeneca, were understandably up in arms, because it was UNTRUE. It looks like the journalists misread the proportion of trial participants around that age group for efficacy. How. Embarrassing. And dangerous: Handelsblatt’s erroneous article has spread like wildfire, and people believe it. What the report and other public information actually said was that the vaccine has the same effectiveness for older people as it does for the younger population, Full Fact reported. 

This brief was originally published in The Wrap here.

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Aarti Bhana
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