Updated March 24, 2021 at 10:23 PM ET
AstraZeneca's latest data analysis affirms effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine and is roughly in line with the results released Monday.
The latest analysis finds the vaccine to be 76% effective against symptomatic COVID-19 and 100% effective against severe or critical disease and hospitalization. These results are very close to the results that came out at the beginning of the week: 79% vaccine efficacy at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 and 100% effective against severe or critical disease and hospitalization.
An independent monitoring board raised questions about the company's release Monday — a day after the company announced that the higher efficacy rate -- saying it didn't include more up-to-date cases that were available.
Other scientists, including White House COVID advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, said the company knew that 79% figure might be an overstatement because it was based on outdated data.
"This is really what you call an unforced error because the fact is this is very likely a very good vaccine," Fauci said, speaking on Tuesday on Good Morning America.
The Data Safety Monitoring Board called on AstraZeneca to recalculate their numbers using information based on where the company's trial stood in March when there were more COVID cases included in the study, rather than the earlier report based on February's statistics.
The updated analysis includes 49 more cases of COVID-19 than the Monday analysis, which drew down the efficacy rates of the vaccine by 3%.
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