From the CBC article I read (bolding is mine):
The department's regulators concluded the shot has an efficacy rate of 62 per cent and have authorized it for use in all adults 18 and older.
While it's less effective than the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines at preventing infection, the shot is 100 per cent effective in preventing the severe outcomes of COVID-19 — including serious illness, hospitalizations and death — the regulators said.
and
And while the AstraZeneca product was found to be less effective than the Pfizer and Moderna shots already approved, Sharma said there's no doubt that a dose of this vaccine is better than no dose at all.
Still better than the flu shot
She cautioned Canadians against comparing efficacy rates of the various vaccine products, saying that in the areas that matter most — preventing serious illness, reducing hospitalizations and curbing the number of deaths — "all these vaccines are good."
"If you look across all the clinical trials of the tens of thousands of people who were involved, the number of cases of people who died from COVID-19 that got vaccines was zero," Sharma said.
"The number of people that were hospitalized because their COVID-19 disease was so severe was zero. The number of people that died because of an adverse event or effect of the vaccine was zero."
She also noted that the AstraZeneca vaccine's efficacy rate is actually higher than that of other common vaccine products — including the flu shot.
