.dralex: I'm also worried about this with the delayed 2nd Pf-BT dose compared with the trialled regime. Because one way that people get chronic syndromes after viral infection is due to insufficient stimulation of the more sophisticated part of the immune response (T & B Cells)> https://twitter.com/queenchristina_/status/1345743191195213826

> Which in theory could mean that people who are inadequately protected, get a mild version of COVID which they are unable to clear, leading to relatively unsophisticated immune mechanisms continually trying to clear it (eg lots of inflammatory molecules)... >

> which apart from many other things, bash the mitochondria (through 'oxidative stress') & lead to chronic fatigue which is difficult to treat. PLUS with low-grade, but ongoing, viral effects & tissue damage (eg neurological, cardiac, respiratory systems impaired).

The design of any vaccine regime is essentially to not allow this to happen. By giving the 2nd dose at the exact time that is needed to stimulate an ADEQUATE T & B Cell response. That response has to be 'big enough' to protect from infection, & to well-enough >

established ('solid enough') for the T&B cells to kick in to kill any incoming virus FASTER than the virus can replicate and get established in the body.

This is even more CRITICAL when there is avirus like COVID that is wreaking havoc because it can get into the nervous system. At all costs, to avoid long COVID, we need an immune response that kicks in fast enough & hard enough to prevent that BECAUSE >

the 'standard' immune cells cant get into the neurological system to clear the virus. It's called Viral Immune Sequestration. And there it sits, replicating and refeeding the body with virus, safe from the threat of any 'measured' immune system response being able to clear it.

The fact of the matter is that the way we are now approaching things, is categorically wrong. It's almost as if the idea is to reduce deaths from COVID by maximising HOW MANY receive ANY dose - even tho we don't know that it will achieve that after just one dose after week 5 - >

> &instead we're going to risk a v significant % of the population to develop an 'indolent' (but not dormant, & always latent) infection, incapacitating swathes of people & not actually clearing the virus from the UK because so many 'hosts' will have it, ? transmitting ? mutating

Which all means that it is a DIRE strategy because it'll still not allow us to get rid of the virus & get back to normal. With worst economic, educational, mental health outcomes by a mile AND a population overwhelmed by #LongCOVID. IT'S ALL A PUNT! AND YET it has been approved!

What we should be doing instead is DRIVING THE VIRUS OUT. It's the ONLY way that we can get past this, & also the fastest. We should accept that kids who have exams this year will have to do them next year, put in measures STAT to maximise learning & safeguard vulnerable kids ETC

And part of that strategy will be PROPER vaccination programmes. To reduce the risk of NHS overwhelm healthcare workers should have 1st vaccine doses, which safeguards staff & essentially increases capacity by eg 25% because it's personnel who are the KEY LIMITING resource >

If it were me, I would have kids with exams this year being offered something no other group of kids have had educationally to fill the extra time, rather than stress them to the hilt & then jeopardising their life chances by squidging their learning into smaller realtime anyway

And I would be REALISTIC. My strategy would span the next 14-20 months, getting people on board by being transparent, with every single vulnerable part of society on teh map of how we will recover from this economically, educationally, with backlogged health imperatives etc.

We need to bring in EVERYONE WHO CAN CONTRIBUTE meaningfully,health professionals thru to trade unions to banks. Example, because of the mismanagement of all this business people have now taken on massive debt, & it's critical that they can plan with immediate safeguards in place

EVERY SINGLE SEGMENT needs a 14-20 month plan if we are going to preserve our sport, culture, arts, our institutions etc AND ESP the capacity of the the general population to be/get well enough to WORK OUR WAY OUT OF THIS beyond COVID. No knee-jerks AND transparent contingencies