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Government now allowing mixing and matching of different vaccines

130 replies

Em777 · 02/01/2021 02:01

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.

OP posts:
MRex · 03/01/2021 10:05

It's startling how many people are unable to read the actual advice from PHE that's been posted several times on this thread refuting the article. I can only guess it's intentional blindness in order to "worry".

MRex · 03/01/2021 10:20

Thinking about it a little more, we're so used to the NHS running all healthcare that it's easy to forget some countries rely on private healthcare, so they will not have the same policy level experience of the difficulties of managing healthcare needs for individuals who have more complex and chaotic lives. Hopefully the FDA is consulting public hospitals that have experience with this rather than making policies that will only suit the majority.

trulydelicious · 03/01/2021 10:57

@thatgingergirl

I've no idea if the BMJ has a particular political stance, but I guess they know about medical matters

Wow, interesting it's got to this

trulydelicious · 03/01/2021 11:14

Interesting it's come to this I mean

Em777 · 03/01/2021 11:14

@thatgingergirl

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55519042

I've no idea if the BMJ has a particular political stance, but I guess they know about medical matters.

I think they should print some sort of correction, unless they believe the authorities have buckled under scrutiny (I don’t think so). They’re usually pretty fair minded in their coronavirus/science reporting but in this case I feel like while they are technically correct the article was misleading in its interpretation. I posted it in good faith and apologise for that.

In its defence (and mine) after the decision to change the interval between Pfizer doses and the cancellation of second appointments it did feel like this sort of policy wasn’t beyond the pale! 🙂

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