The effectiveness of the BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 vaccines against new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections requires continuous re-evaluation, given the increasingly dominant B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of these vaccines in a large, community-based survey of randomly selected households across the United Kingdom. We found that the effectiveness of BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 against infections (new polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-positive cases) with symptoms or high viral burden is reduced with the B.1.617.2 variant (absolute difference of 10–13% for BNT162b2 and 16% for ChAdOx1) compared to the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) variant. The effectiveness of two doses remains at least as great as protection afforded by prior natural infection. The dynamics of immunity after second doses differed significantly between BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1, with greater initial effectiveness against new PCR-positive cases but faster declines in protection against high viral burden and symptomatic infection with BNT162b2. There was no evidence that effectiveness varied by dosing interval, but protection was higher in vaccinated individuals after a prior infection and in younger adults. With B.1.617.2, infections occurring after two vaccinations had similar peak viral burden as those in unvaccinated individuals. SARS-CoV-2 vaccination still reduces new infections, but effectiveness and attenuation of peak viral burden are reduced with B.1.617.2.

measured with high precision, both in the cross sections and the small energy intervals, thus allowing meaningful fusion barrier distributions to be extracted. In this representation it is clearly seen that the excitation functions are not smooth and featureless; each is unique and is shown to depend on the details of the structure of the interacting nuclei. The effects of excitation of the collective single phonon states in ' Sm are evident.For the ' 0 projectile, the role of additional coupling to neutron stripping channels with positive Q values can be seen. As expected, the barrier distributions associated with ' Srn and ' W are dominated by deformation effects. However, the data appear to display sensitivity to additional couplings, even though they involve relatively weak inelastic and transfer channels.PACS number(s): 25.70.Jj

Complete fusion excitation functions for 9 Be 1 208 Pb have been measured to high precision at near barrier energies. The experimental fusion barrier distribution extracted from these data allows reliable prediction of the expected complete fusion cross sections. However, the measured cross sections are only 68% of those predicted. The large cross sections observed for incomplete fusion products support the interpretation that this suppression of fusion is caused by 9 Be breaking up into charged fragments before reaching the fusion barrier. Implications for the fusion of radioactive nuclei are discussed. [S0031-9007(99)08474-4] PACS numbers: 25.70.Jj, 25.70.Mn

Skin diseases such as acne are sometimes thought of as unimportant, even trivial, when compared with diseases of other organ systems. To address this point directly, validated generic questionnaires were used to assess morbidity in acne patients and compare it with morbidity in patients with other chronic diseases. For 111 acne patients referred to a dermatologist, quality of life was measured using the Dermatology Life Quality Index, Rosenberg's measure of self-esteem, a version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) and the Short Form 36 (SF-36). Clinical severity was measured using the Leeds Acne Grade. Population quality of life data for the SF-36 instrument were available from a random sample of adult local residents (n = 9334) some of whom reported a variety of long-standing disabling diseases. All quality of life instruments showed substantial deficits for acne patients that correlated with each other but not with clinically assessed acne severity. The acne patients (a relatively severely affected group) reported levels of social, psychological and emotional problems that were as great as those reported by patients with chronic disabling asthma, epilepsy, diabetes, back pain or arthritis. Acne is not a trivial disease in comparison with other chronic conditions. This should be recognized in the allocation of health care resources.

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