I am becoming deeply troubled over the cavalier way the UK vaccine roll out is being changed on the hoof.

We have 2 approved vaccines that work to induce protective immunity.

They are both safe

I understand the haste to get them into as many people as possible.

But the phase iii data doesn’t exist to support their use in combination.

They are not quite the same immunogen. So homologous and heterologous boosting may accentuate different responses. And it might matter which order.

We do not know anything about this.

Next the timing

AZ boosting at 3 months turns out to boost higher Ab levels - another ‘serendipitous’ thing to fall out of the trial. Fine. But how protective is one shot?

And changing the Pfizer regimen, based reanalyzing the data to look for an answer they want. Probably true

But again no data. And in doing so pulling the boost from those already waiting for it.

I’m all for pragmatism and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. But we do clinical trials for a reason.

And if something unexpected were to happen, the damage done to vaccines in general will be incalculable.

The antivax movement is just waiting to leap on any screw up.