Asked about concerns among younger women under 60, given the prevalence of reported cases in that age and gender group, Sabine Straus, the chair of the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC), said COVID-19 is a very serious disease and the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been "established" and they outweigh the risk, with executive director Emer Cooke adding they need to use the vaccines available in order to beat the pandemic.