It's thought to be much higher than this, I think we're expecting another paper soon that shows it more comparable to pfizer/moderna. But you have to be cautio

It's thought to be much higher than this, I think we're expecting another paper soon that shows it more comparable to pfizer/moderna. But you have to be cautious with comparisons between the trials - the control arm was different, and the follow-up was different (Oxford were swabbing weekly). The advantage of the Oxford vaccine is it can be stored at room temp. The Pfizer vaccine is largely being rolled out at large teaching hospitals - which means we can't get to the elderly and infirm, without risking exposure to them by bringing them up to the hospital. The Oxford vaccine would allow GP surgeries to give out the vaccine, as well as do home visits. I'll admit that I don't know the maths behind whether a 60% reduction (which I think would multiply R rate by 0.4) will completely mitigate the increase in R by the new variant (multiply R by 1.74). It's all about a tipping point and getting the R to stay under 1, but as I pointed out above - it's difficult to compare studies using different methodologies.