The CEO of AstraZeneca, Pascal Soriot, has endorsed spreading out the time between vaccine doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Not only does this lead to significant benefits in supply-constrained situations, but also, he says, it gives better efficiency in the long term! Keeping vaccines in freezers puts lives at risk.
From an exclusive interview with Italian outlet, La Repubblica:
“I think the UK one-dose strategy is absolutely the right way to go, at least for our vaccine. I cannot comment about the Pfizer vaccine, whose studies are for a three-week interval. In our case, the trial we’re talking about was conducted by Oxford University. We AZ are conducting the US trial, which we think is going to be ready very soon. Oxford University conducted the so-called Oxford trial in UK and Brazil, and we have data for patients who received the vaccine in one-month interval, 2 or 3 months interval.
“First of all, we believe that the efficacy of one dose is sufficient: 100 percent protection against severe disease and hospitalization, and 71-73 percent of efficacy overall. The second dose is needed for long term protection. But you get a better efficiency if you get the 2nd dose later than earlier. We are going to do a study in the US and globally to use two-month dose interval to confirm that this is indeed the case, there are many reasons to believe it is the case with our vaccine. We have a different technology. First of all, when you look at level of antibody production, this is higher if you give the second dose three months or two months later than one month later. Also, if you look at Ebola, its vaccine, which is also using the Adenoviral vector like the Covid one, the second dose needs to be given eight weeks later. Finally, the J&J vaccine with Adenoviral vector also are performing studies on a two-month interval. And J&J has the same technology as ours.
“Therefore, for our vaccine, there is no doubt in my mind that the way the UK is going is the best way, because right now you have a limited amount of vaccine, but also you have a limited number of doctors and nurses able to inject people. So you maximize the number of people who get one dose. You give them enough protection for two or three months, then you give them the second dose after 3 months. By March, the UK will have vaccinated maybe 28 or 30 million people. The Prime Minister has a goal to vaccinate 15 million people by mid-February, and they’re already at 6,5 million. So they will get there.”
Pascal Soriot: “There are a lot of emotions on vaccines in EU. But it’s complicated”
Throughout this pandemic, the Isle of Man “experts” have repeatedly been wrong in the first instance, and been slow to correct their wrong decisions. Even worse, none have been held accountable for any of their wrong decisions, and there’s no evidence that an “expert” has lost even a penny for any of the times they have been wrong.
No one was held accountable for their fake news in March 2020 (!!!) that the Coronavirus was moderate to low risk. No one was sacked, not one “expert” lost a penny.
No one was held accountable for the Government providing wrong advice to arriving travellers about the quarantine required of them in March 2020. No one was sacked, not one “expert” lost a penny.
No one was held accountable for encouraging people to go out to restaurants in mid-March 2020, when other nations were closing their borders. No one was sacked, not one “expert” lost a penny.
No one was held accountable for their fake news last year that masks might spread the virus. No one was sacked, not one “expert” lost a penny.
No one was held accountable for the dozens of breaches in September/October because of – AGAIN – bad advice to people arriving in IOM. No one was sacked, not one “expert” lost a penny.
No one was held accountable for the shipping delay for vaccines in December. No one was sacked, not one “expert” lost a penny.
No one was held accountable for the paperwork holdup for vaccines deployment. No one was sacked, not one “expert” lost a penny.
No one was held accountable for the postponing vaccinations until after Christmas so the whole 5-day working week was available – which wasn’t even needed. No one was sacked, not one “expert” lost a penny.
No one was held accountable for their wrong determination that the coronavirus outbreak at New Year’s Eve was “low risk”. No one was sacked, not one “expert” lost a penny.
No one was held accountable for subjecting the public to a second lockdown. No one was sacked, not one “expert” lost a penny.
And here we are again. No one will be held accountable for putting more Manx lives at risk by delaying the vaccine rollout to have a bigger stockpile in freezers for second doses. No one will be sacked, not one “expert” will lose a penny.
