DOCTORS REVOLT ON JABS
They defy health chiefs on second doses as fears mount over vaccine rollout
FAMILY doctors are rebelling against the Government’s Covid vaccine U-turn.
Surgeries have been told to postpone giving a second Pfizer jab to those who have had the first – to increase the numbers protected.
However GPs are refusing to cancel appointments, saying this would be a breach of trust.
Nearly a million Britons – mostly over 80 – were due to receive the booster dose in the next few days.
The clash comes amid growing concerns over the mass vaccination strategy. Only 530,000 doses of the newly approved Oxford jab will be ready next week – despite an insistence from AstraZeneca
that there have been no supply problems. Ministers have ordered 100million doses. With Covid rates soaring, scientists advised the Government to delay the second dose from three weeks to 12 weeks to prioritise giving the initial jab to as many people as possible.
The rebellious GPs are pointing to a sentence in NHS guidance that grants them ‘clinical discretion’ over the scheduling of vaccination. They have been backed by the British Medical Association, which said it would be ‘grossly unfair’ to deny full protection for the most vulnerable elderly people.
Experts say it is vital that the rate of vaccination is increased dramatically. Dosing two million people a week would have a ‘much more substantial impact’ on the spread of the virus than the far slower rate achieved last month, research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found.
UK officials admit the shortages have influenced the decision to delay the second dose of jabs.
A senior Government adviser said last night: ‘If you vaccinate twice, you vaccinate half the number of people. That’s it. This next period over the winter is a really high risk period – hospitals are filling up.
‘We are not going to have enough to vaccinate everybody in the next three months so it really is a straightforward zero-sum game.
‘You either vaccinate two people or you vaccinate one person – that is the decision.’
But Dr Richard Vautrey, chairman of the BMA’s GP committee, said: ‘The BMA believes the existing commitment made to these patients by the NHS and local clinicians should be respected.
‘If GPs decide to honour these booked appointments in January the BMA will support them.’
Dr Helen Salisbury, a GP in Oxford, said: ‘We were told we could use our clinical discretion, and that’s what we are doing.
‘When you’ve started a patient on a course of treatment and you’ve said, “This is what the plan is, here’s one jab, please come back in three weeks, it’s really important you have the second jab to be fully protected” and then, to turn round five minutes later and say, “Don’t worry about that, it’s OK, you can have it in 12 weeks not three weeks” – I don’t think that’s good enough, actually.’
Dr Vinesh Patel, spokesman for the Doctors’ Association UK GP committee, added: ‘A patient can’t consent for a treatment then have the treatment changed without their permission, especially when the evidence for change is lacking.
‘Most of these patients are over the age of 80, have already arranged transport and so cancelling their second vaccine at such short notice will cause untold levels of anxiety.’
Professor Azeem Majeed, head of primary care at Imperial College London and a GP in South London, added: ‘This decision speaks of panic. Pfizer has said the second dose should be given three weeks after the first and that is what we told patients. I’m not convinced by the explanation we have been given about the data – it has been very poorly communicated.’
Government scientists, however, insist that delaying the second dose will not significantly reduce protection – and in the case of the Oxford vaccine may actually increase it.
The UK’s official Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine will provide 90 per cent protection two weeks after it is given.
A second dose will boost this to 95 per cent – and is also thought to provide a greater duration of protection.
‘Do you want 1,000 people with 90 per cent protection, or, do you want 500 people, 95 per cent protected,’ a source said last night. ‘That is what we are talking about – that difference.’
He dismissed Pfizer’s insistence that there was no evidence that its jab works with a 12-week gap.
‘Pfizer has a very, very strong incentive to make sure no one gets the impression they can only use one vaccine,’ he said.
‘They’ve been shoving that narrative really strongly because they don’t want anybody to start moving away from two doses. But all the serious vaccine people agree that it would be extraordinarily unlikely to fade over that ten-week period, till the second vaccine.’
He stressed: ‘There’s absolutely no change in the view that the second dose is essential. We’re not moving away from that at all. It is purely a timing issue.
‘This will cause concern for some people who have been vaccinated already – but equally a delay in access would cause concern to those people who have not been vaccinated. This policy will mean more people vaccinated sooner.’
A single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine is thought to provide 73 per cent immunity – and some evidence suggests delaying the second dose to 12 weeks, rather than four weeks as initially planned, will increase this protection.
A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘The data provided by the manufacturers demonstrated that both vaccines offer considerable protection for patients after the first dose.’
‘Hospitals are filling up’