I have had my parents vaccinated. They both received the Pfizer jab. The only concern I have is that their second jab is scheduled for March, in line with this government’s ‘expert’ appraisal of the situation.
Much was made of the approval process of the vaccine in the first place – all the stuff about examining the data properly and not cutting any corners. The data they have from Pfizer and BioNTech very specifically relate to having a jab on Day One, then receiving a booster jab on Day Twenty One. Nothing else, just that. There are no data which directly looked at giving the booster after three months instead of three weeks.
But our ‘experts’ have somehow decided that it is OK to have the second jab on Day Ninety (or thereabouts). This is primarily driven by vaccine availability, though we won’t admit to that and it is therefore officially explained away as ‘trying to get as many people as possible protected because the jab is almost completely effective after one dose anyway’. Then there’s a bit of standard government obfuscation thrown just in case it still made any sense even then.
However, an Israeli study – and Israel rolled out the vaccine much more effectively than we did, even if we approved it before the French or the Germans (a major detail to far too many in this country) – suggests that the first dose might only be 33% effective instead of the 90% figure we somehow came up with back in December.
So that has now triggered our ‘experts’ to say they will ‘look carefully’ at the Israeli data.
You couldn’t make this up if you tried. The Pfizer/BioNTech jab requires shots 21 days apart. Nothing else. Three months has not been part of clinical trials, and is a theoretical mathematical computation – which is now being questioned – albeit non-peer reviewed – by real data from Israel. At the very least, it means ‘90% effective’ is probably wrong, and the real figure lies in some as yet unknown middle ground between 33% and 90%.
I was concerned at the decision to change it to three months when I heard about it, because I knew what the clinical trials had been based on. But I grudgingly accepted what our ‘experts’ said. But now I don’t – or at least, I’m not so sure.
It. Should. Be. Twenty. One. Days. And. Not. Three. Months. Between. Shots.
That’s what Pfizer’s clinical trials studied, and ONLY that.