That's pretty much what the CMO said the other day.
I doubt we'll be out of lockdown before mid-March (and then it'll be tiers) but they've stressed a few times that they want more people to have some form of protection. That is, unarguably, better for suppressing a virus than less people having more protection. For the vast majority of people, the vaccine is there merely to give your immune system a boost.
The issue is obviously the efficacy of the vaccines after the longer spacing - that's where the risk comes in. The logic behind the risk is clear, though.
But I keep saying, if you've got some evidence to suggest 12 weeks is better than 3 weeks with one of the vaccines, then why wouldn't you do that?
If Pfizer had tested, for example, 6 weeks rather than 3 weeks, then there'd had been no issue with this because we'd have never known that 3 weeks was even an option, would we, as much as certain people in here like to act like they're experts on everything from socialism through the ages to the history of vaccinations.
This isn't me having a go at Pfizer. Like I've said, if they've not tested longer spacing with that vaccine then the government shouldn't be taking a risk in increasing the time between doses. But Oxford-AZ did test longer spacing, and did get positive results. Since the vast majority of the country will be getting that jab, then the risk will hopefully be drastically reduced.
As Whitty also stressed, the aim of the vaccine is to prevent death, serious illness and, as the third most important thing, infection.
Infection is the first thing to go in terms of the domino effect if the virus starts to find a way past the vaccine by different strains etc, but that still doesn't mean the vaccine won't be doing its job, because it'll be helping people fight the thing off when/if they have it, without the need for them to be in bed for 2 weeks or God forbid end up in hospital.
