It is not right to put back the second dose

I HAVE received a letter from my surgery informing me that my second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech

vaccine due on January 20 has been postponed for 12 weeks.

I should have had the second vaccine three weeks after the first dose. The letter informed me that I will be notified of the new date. But not before March.

The vaccine manufacturers did recommend the second booster dose should be carried out three weeks after the first for maximum protection.

This has been ignored by the Government because, they say, to save more lives they will carry out a mass vaccination with the first dose of any vaccine available. That three weeks recommended date for the booster has been diluted to three months, affecting the maximum protection of the vaccine.

I do not see why the second dose of the vaccine should not have been continued alongside the first dose, given that more agencies, extra nurses, chemists, GP surgeries, paramedic, etc, will be available to carry out the vaccination.

That will still speed up the processes and offer wider protection without compromising the first dose of vaccine given out in December.

This Government has made a panic decision to scrap all the recommendations of the manufacturers, thus diluting the efficiency of the vaccines.

I am over 84 but not yet expendable. I have now read that many (over 1,000) surgeries have ignored the Government’s advice and continue to administer the booster dose. But not my surgery.

Another mess by our Government. How can we trust them?

G Albertella, by email