evidence: This study provides early real world evidence for the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 and Oxford-Asta-Zeneca ChAdOx1-S vaccines against symptomatic covid-19, hospital admissions, and death in older people in England. We found that a single dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine is about 60-70% effective at preventing symptomatic disease in adults aged 70 years and older in England and that two doses are about 85-90% effective. Those who were vaccinated and went on to have symptoms had a 44% lower risk of being admitted hospital and a 51% lower risk of death compared with people who were unvaccinated. We also found that a single dose of the ChAdOx1-S vaccine was about 60-75% effective against symptomatic disease and provided an additional protective effect against hospital admission—it is too early to assess the effect on mortality. The B.1.1.7 variant now dominates in the UK and these results will largely reflect vaccine effectiveness against this variant.