Half of Scots are worried by 12-week vaccine gap
●Concern at UK taking different path to the World Health Organisation ●Over-65s promised first dose will be delivered to them within nine weeks ●24-hours-a-day service may start next month as mass centres opened
Just under half of Scots are concerned about health officials’ decision to recommend a gap of 12 weeks between the first and second doses of coronavirus vaccines, a poll for The Scotsman has found.
Respondents were asked whether they were concerned about the decision of the UK’S Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s to delay the second dose of vaccines for up to 12 weeks.
The decision applied to both the Pfizer and Oxford-astrazeneca vaccines, each of which was tested in clinical trails using two doses given at least three weeks apart.
Pfizer has said it does not have evidence of what happens to immunity beyond 21 days after the first dose and the World Health Organisation recommends that the second dose of this vaccine be given no later than six weeks after the first.
The poll found 49 per cent were concerned about the gap between doses, with 19 per cent “greatly concerned”.
Medics such as Dr Lewis Morrison of the British Medical Association’s Scottish Council questioned the move when it was announced before the new year, querying whether there would be a guaranteed supply for second jags and the effectiveness of such a delay.
However, in a joint statement at the end of December, the chief medical officers of each UK nation defended the move.
They said: “The second vaccine dose is likely to be very important for duration of protection, and at an appropriate dose interval may further
increase vaccine efficacy. In the short-term, the additional increase of vaccine efficacy from the second dose is likely to be modest; the great majority of the initial protection from clinical disease is after the first dose of vaccine."
NHS England has said the decision to delay the second dose was taken to prioritise giving the first doses to as many high priority people as possible.
The chief medical officers said that vaccine shortages were a major reason for the shift in approach.
They wrote: “We have to ensure that we maximise the number of eligible people who receive the vaccine. Currently the main barrier to this is vaccine availability, a global issue, and this will remain the case for several months and, importantly, through the critical winter period.”
Overall, confidence in the vaccine has improved since December when 55 per cent of Scots were keen to get the jag but this has risen to 64 per cent.