The UK’s rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has been linked to a “substantial reduction” in the risk of hospital admissions, a new study has shown.

Researchers examined coronavirus hospital admissions in Scotland among people who have had their first jab and compared them with those who had not yet received a dose of the vaccine.

By the fourth week after receiving an initial dose, the Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines were shown to reduce the risk of hospitalisation from coronavirus in Scotland by up to 85% and 94%, respectively.

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Experts from the Universities of Edinburgh, Strathclyde, Aberdeen, Glasgow and St Andrew’s and Public Health Scotland (PHS) analysed a dataset covering the entire Scottish population of 5.4 million.

Lead researcher Professor Aziz Sheikh said: “These results are very encouraging and have given us great reasons to be optimistic for the future.

“We now have national evidence – across an entire country – that vaccination provides protection against COVID-19 hospitalisations.”

Dr Jim McMenamin, national COVID-19 incident director at Public Health Scotland, said: “These results are important as we move from expectation to firm evidence of benefit from vaccines.

“Across the Scottish population the results show a substantial effect on reducing the risk of admission to hospital from a single dose of vaccine.

“For anyone offered the vaccine I encourage them to get vaccinated.”

The study has not been peer reviewed.

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