Government now allowing mixing and matching of different vaccines

[Em777]

From the New York Times:

Amid a sputtering vaccine rollout and fears of a new and potentially more transmissible variant of the coronavirus, Britain has quietly updated its vaccination playbook to allow for a mix-and-match vaccine regimen. If a second dose of the vaccine a patient originally received isn’t available, or if the manufacturer of the first shot isn’t known, another vaccine may be substituted, health officials said.

The new guidance contradicts guidelines in the United States, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that the authorized Covid-19 vaccines “are not interchangeable,” and that “the safety and efficacy of a mixed-product series have not been evaluated. Both doses of the series should be completed with the same product.”

Some scientists say Britain is gambling with its new guidance. “There are no data on this idea whatsoever,” said John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University. Officials in Britain “seem to have abandoned science completely now and are just trying to guess their way out of a mess.”

www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/health/coronavirus-vaccines-britain.html

This seems super risky to me.

This is fake news.
Why even bother giving it the time of day.

It’s easy for the Americans to criticise the U.K. approach right now.

But they are not in our dire situation.

Yet.

They are already in a very bad place with massive caseloads but it seems the new variant has not yet embedded there.

I’m afraid the UK are just ahead of the rest of the world with this sharp rise in cases....

Ok great. So what are the Australians doing re. Vaccination? I hear that they had to abandon their home grown trial? What a joke and a laughing stock! I am shocked! They must be all in useless over there!
But I wouldn’t do or say or think any of that as it is a fast moving situation and I understand people in vaccine development are doing their best.
Australia is going to heavily rely on the Oxford vaccine and will probably be watching closely what we do here to emulate the roll out there.
So what the U.K. does will be directly benefitting your fellow Australians.

@MRex

Most of us have had a multitude of other vaccines in the past, you probably had a different flu vaccine manufacturer every year but simply never asked who made it. There is no special reason to expect a problem from mixing these two vaccines and they are actually being trialled to see if it improves efficacy overall.

Sputnik was already two different types of vaccine, and they've been trialling the Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine in Russia as one half of the Sputnik regime recently (www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-55273907). They also announced in early December a trial mixing Oxford and Pfizer to start in January: (www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/08/covid-mixed-vaccine-trial-likely-to-begin-in-uk-next-month), so clearly they are expecting decent results from the Sputnik trial info so far. The authorisation is clear that it's only to be done outside the trial right now if the other vaccine isn't available (see myriad Pfizer distribution issues worldwide) and someone is considered at risk, not that it should be done routinely before the trials complete.

Unless you invested all your savings in Pfizer, it really shouldn't bother you that trials are investigating the best possible regime for the long term with drugs that are already tested and confirmed as safe. You should also be aware that investment interests sometimes affect what is written in newspapers.

Great post. The scaremongers should shut up! Everyone should think about all the other vaccines they and their children have had, over the years.

Social media and the press have a lot to answer to. Individuals should not get information from the press or forums like this, on immunisation.

[quote MrsPernicious]@sashagabadon you really ought to try reading some foreign press, helps to give a wider perspective on many issues.[/quote]
I read loads of foreign press and I understand it has as much of an agenda as our own. New York Times is hugely anti British ( no idea why) but it is similar to the Guardian here in that respect.

Can someone give an example (proven) of a "long term" effect of a vaccine, a harm that wasn't apparent until > 4 months after the vaccine was given, but can be clearly linked to the vaccine and not anything else.

This is a classic journalist tactic of presenting a piece of information in a skewed fashion to make it more sinister than it seems.

What we have to remember is that some people live chaotic lives. These are the type of people to suffer the worst health inequalities as a consequence. We also don’t have a national ID system that allows us to uniquely identify people. The GP and Mass sites will use a single system linked to GP records. It relies on people providing sufficient and correct information to link to that record on both visits. It relies on people turning up at the same place for their second dose (it’s booked at the time of the first dose). This won’t always be the case. Additionally for whatever reason some people have provided inconsistent information in the past meaning they can have more than one patient record. It’s isn’t always possible to match these.

There is a risk that people will present at a vaccination site claiming to have had a first dose. This might not even be the case as some people will confuse it with other vaccines and treatment. The vaccinators won’t be able to find or match the record based on the information given. Or they might match it and then realise they don’t have the original vaccine because they didn’t provide it.

The question is what to do, knowing there is a risk to the persons health if they don’t get vaccinated. Considering this is very likely to be a vulnerable population, the best thing to do is to vaccinate.

All those huffing and puffing whilst throwing about assumed science need to say what they think should happen in these circumstances. Do you turn away the homeless person with mental health problems or do you vaccinate?

This is what the guidance says.

When I did the training weeks ago, we were told this. If you don't have the one they had the first time or we don't know which one they had, then give the one we do have.

It makes sense, if the alternative is they don't get a second vaccine at all. Because it won't reduce immunity and it's likely it will increase it. I'd be happy enough if it were me having it, but I can understand people being concerned.

This was before the up to 12 week interval increase though. That may make more of a difference.

@sashagabadon

Ok great. So what are the Australians doing re. Vaccination? I hear that they had to abandon their home grown trial? What a joke and a laughing stock! I am shocked! They must be all in useless over there! But I wouldn’t do or say or think any of that as it is a fast moving situation and I understand people in vaccine development are doing their best. Australia is going to heavily rely on the Oxford vaccine and will probably be watching closely what we do here to emulate the roll out there. So what the U.K. does will be directly benefitting your fellow Australians.

You seem hyper-sensitive and insecure about the British response. I have many concerns about the way Australia has handled the pandemic. This doesn’t mean I should stop caring about the government here mixing and matching novel vaccine types against manufacturer advice, when there has been no trial run.

This is not about “my country is better than yours”. I have been here in the UK a long time, I don’t even consider Australia home. I just want us to be out this horrible time safely. Please stop personally attacking me.

This doesn’t mean I should stop caring about the government here mixing and matching novel vaccine types against manufacturer advice, when there has been no trial run.

It's a contingency plan.

Do you seriously think some of the best scientists in the world - and however much glee you take in slagging off Britain, British scientists have an excellent reputation - are going to 'mix and match' vaccines randomly, should it come to that? Do you really think they don't have knowledge and expertise well beyond that available to random MNers, and will not be acting on that?

@IcedPurple

This doesn’t mean I should stop caring about the government here mixing and matching novel vaccine types against manufacturer advice, when there has been no trial run.

It's a contingency plan.

Do you seriously think some of the best scientists in the world - and however much glee you take in slagging off Britain, British scientists have an excellent reputation - are going to 'mix and match' vaccines randomly, should it come to that? Do you really think they don't have knowledge and expertise well beyond that available to random MNers, and will not be acting on that?

What glee? I posted a NYT article that raises legitimate concerns about the UK being willing to mix two very different vaccines. Views held by many experts.

I’m out. This place genuinely frightens me in its insularity and rejection of expert views.

Being immunocompromised, I actually wonder if it is better to receive two different mode-of-action vaccines. Maybe my immune system is shit at making antibodies to standard vaccines (obviously not including attenuated as I can't have them), but will work brilliantly when producing it's own response from mRNA? I'd love to find out (cause im just interested like that) and I'm happy to volunteer :)

There's some very unpleasant anti-immigrant posting on here. Both offenders have deliberately picked on the OP because she is not British born. You're in no place to call out 'vitriol' when you are the ones doing the bullying.

I’m not attacking anybody. I just feel our U.K. based scientists and regulators deserve more respect than many on here give them. I often wonder what a lot of people in here that constantly attack the U.K. have five themselves to help other than sit at home and complain.
Anyway I am going to leave this thread now as it is unproductive.

I have now reported this thread, and I sincerely hope that those who think that an informed and adult discussion is based on personal attacks on a persons place of birth are dealt with appropriately. It is crass mobbing and bullying, and nothing more. People are allowed to have differing opinions. I am frequently disgusted by some of the opinions that I read on threads here. But if I choose to engage in that discussion, then I aim to do so based on facts and evidence, not on personal attacks on ethnicity. The comments made by some posters here are nothing short of disgusting, and if they had been aimed at someone from Africa or Asia they would have been crucified for them. Quite rightly.

I agree it think it’s a good idea to remove the thread. It is poor taste and scaremongering generally imo.

*What glee? I posted a NYT article that raises legitimate concerns about the UK being willing to mix two very different vaccines. Views held by many experts.

I’m out. This place genuinely frightens me in its insularity and rejection of expert views.*

Couldn't you argue that you're the one rejecting expert views? Unless you believe that this decison - which to repeat is only a contingency plan - has been made by people with zero expertise? Or do you only accept 'experts' who support your own views?

@sashagabadon

I agree it think it’s a good idea to remove the thread. It is poor taste and scaremongering generally imo.

To be clear, I do not agree with you. The OP had been treated shittily by a bunch of racists, and I reported the racists, not the thread. The thread is perfectly legitimate and there are several others on the same subject in the same vein. It is never scaremongering to have informed debate.

Pfizer and AstraZeneca wouldn’t endorse mixing each other companies vaccines. They will also back away from ANY side effects or responsibility as their protocols are not being followed. Our govt is running a drug trial without consent, on elderly folk that would not be included in drug trials and certainly not without their consent.

I can understand the argument for giving one dose and increasing the gap to the second dose being given. Allows twice as many people to be given reasonable protection.
The chip chopping between two has not been researched, yet. Might prove to be ok might not. Are the UK population lab mice?

@Em777 I'm sorry you have experienced this. Some people can genuinely not distinguish 'government-bashing' from scientific scrutiny, and their blind faith will lead them to unhappy times.

I hope you haven't been too offended. I get you, and there are others who do too.

Best wishes.

Head of Immunisations at Public Health England Dr Mary Ramsay says “We do not recommend mixing the COVID-19 vaccines" adding that "If your first dose is the Pfizer vaccine you should not be given the Astrazeneca vaccine for your second dose and vice versa"
twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/1345330803581087744

Any adorable posters on here like to suggest that Dr Mary Ramsay is born aboard, providing fake news or an infiltrator?

@CrunchyCarrot

If true, this is a massive U-turn. JVT was saying that vaccines should not be mixed across the 2 doses. Yet I can see that happening if people have had the Pfizer jab, had their second dose cancelled, and then it runs out as so many people are given one jab. So they will need to get the Oxford vaccine if they want more protection.

You could not make this up.

I think what's actually happened is they didn't hold back half of the Pfizer shipment expecting to get another one before the second doses were due so now they've panicked and said you can have the Pfizer one after 12 weeks and if it still hasn't turned up you can have the Oxford. I also find myself wondering if the Oxford vaccine was approved to help cover up this possible fuck up. Their trial was a steaming pile of poo and the FDA have said they need more data so it's not getting approved before April.