davek
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Anyone who accepts that the spacing out of jabs 1 and 2 from 3 weeks to 3 months is desirable or even neutral must have their heads buttoned up at the back.While they have gone against evidence for the Pfizer one, it appears that the longer gap between the doses for the Oxford Vaccine could actually be a benefit.
I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong, btw. They are doing it to get more people vaccinated quickly - that's a good thing. However, are they risking the vaccinations not been as effective by doing that? Pfizer say so, so in that sense they are risking it. However, the Oxford vaccine, there doesn't appear to be a risk with that. However, the numbers tested weren't as great as the Pfizer one.
Covid-19 vaccination: What’s the evidence for extending the dosing interval?
On 30 December the four UK chief medical officers announced that the second doses of the covid vaccines should be given towards the end of 12 weeks rather than in the previously recommended 3-4 weeks. Gareth Iacobucci and Elisabeth Mahase look at the questions this has raised In a letter sent...www.bmj.com
What’s the evidence for changing the schedule?
There isn’t much for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, as trials did not compare different dose spacing or compare one with two doses. The trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine did include different spacing between doses, finding that a longer gap (two to three months) led to a greater immune response, but the overall participant numbers were small. In the UK study 59% (1407 of 2377) of the participants who had two standard doses received the second dose between nine and 12 weeks after the first. In the Brazil study only 18.6% (384 of 2063) received a second dose between nine and 12 weeks after the first. The combined trial results, published in the Lancet, found that vaccine efficacy 14 days after a second dose was higher in the group that had more than six weeks between the two doses (65.4%) than in the group that had less than six weeks between doses (53.4%)...
...Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said, “In an ideal world, decisions about treatments would only be made within the exact parameters of the trials which have been conducted. In the real world, this is never so . . . We know that vaccinating only half of a vulnerable population will lead to a notable increase in cases of covid-19, with all that this entails, including deaths. When resources of doses and people to vaccinate are limited, then vaccinating more people with potentially less efficacy is demonstrably better than a fuller efficacy in only half.”
Also, while I appreciate you rightly hate our government, we aren't the only country to be doing it.
Denmark on Monday approved a lag of up to six weeks between the first and second shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Reuters reported, although the vaccine is meant to to be given in doses three weeks apart. Germany and Ireland are considering similar moves.
All we can do now is get people vaccinated. The sooner that happens, the better. The evidence suggests the Oxford vaccine will be stronger for it, though we will of course not know for sure until further down the line. Same with Pfizer.
Is it a political decision? Well, every decision taken by a government is political. It's why I hate those idiots who accused Starmer of 'playing politics' calling for stricter measures back in autumn. It's his job to play politics, he's a politician.
This is a government swamped by its own catastrophic policy using its regulators to rubber stamp a dodgy u-turn.
