WHAT!?

[miasmum]

All I know is that our Practice Manager received several emails Thursday (the last day I was at work) saying that the appointments for the second vaccinations with the Pfizer vaccine needed cancelling and new patients booking in for their first vaccines. Some surgeries or rather hubs in our area were due to start their second vaccines on Tuesday basically giving the staff 2 days to cancel over a hundred appointments and rebook another hundred in their places and our CCG said this is not possible. I presume this comes under the "with clinical discretion applied locally if needed)" part. What happened after I left Thursday I have no idea

[Suff]

As far as I recall, Pfizer Had 3m doses available.

No point in Coming back for the second dose, it is not available.

France is talking Feb before ramping up vaccinations due to short supply.

The government is trying to do the best it can with what is available.

The Oxford, AZD, vaccine is the best bet as the supply is more secure.

[Workingman]

That's not the point, Suff.

It's like mixing cross ply and radial tyres on the same axle - it's not on, and it's illegal.

[Suff]

That's not the point, Suff.

It's like mixing cross ply and radial tyres on the same axle - it's not on, and it's illegal.

True, mixing has not been tested. However it is hardly unknown. It has been a process tested in animal vaccination for more than a decade now (if you use the custom range in Google and exclude 2020 to avoid all the million "Oh My God what are they doing" recent posts).

The point about a vaccine is to produce a response in the human immune system which builds up a defence against a particular pathogen. All articles I have read talk about putting two different live vaccines in the same syringe. Which is pretty stupid as they will do unexpected things.

Giving two different vaccines months apart is highly unlikely to cause a problem in that way. It may not be overly effective, it may promote an unexpectedly strong response to the second vaccine. What else are the doomsayers getting at? Are they saying that stimulating the immune system again, with the signature of the virus, a month or more after the first vaccine, is going to kill/damage people? What happens if they get the actual virus?

The response doesn't add up. It seems that everyone is throwing up their arms and saying "we don't know so you can't do it". Well we do know that thousands of people are dying a week. So what are the answers to that then? Because "we don't know" doesn't cut it.

The more concerning thing here is that the government is discussing doing this without any trials at all. There is time, they could do a phase 1/2 trial in the next 3 months if they wished. Whether this is a result of leaks which precede a measured approach and response I don't know. But at least someone is thinking out of the box, trying to save lives.