It is not supposition to look at cases and death rates through last year until now. There is simply a different time dynamic between the UK and some other large European countries. I am not anti-AZ vaccine, I have frequently said that it is a good vaccine and has a role. But it is not a matter of opinion that it is less effective than the mRNAs. Sorry if that displeases you, but that is how it is. I also believe, as do others in industry, that AZ was not the right partner for Oxford, and a partner with a track record of vaccine development and scalable manufacturing capacity would have been better.
Pascal Soriot has established his own track record of saying stuff that was later shown to be incorrect, starting with the timelines and quantities expected for the AZ vaccine. Credence is earned. He admitted yesterday that there is no evidence at all of what he says and the response in social media within the UK medical community has been in line with mine. If you have a theory about how a markedly superior effect on antibodies by mRNAs over adenovirus vectors is overturned to become a superior effect on T-cells by the adenovirus vectors, which is essentially what he was waffling about, I would be happy to see it. The conventional understanding of the human immune response to vaccines can then be rewritten.
I don't blame Soriot for puffing up his product, just as they announce they intend to make some money from it, but he was not talking science he was doing PR. I thought you would have spotted that.
Edit: See this twitter thread from Christina Pagel on UK vs Europe comparisons:
link