There is a great deal of evidence to indicate that leaving a longer gap between jabs offers better protection. Rushing to get your second jab because you're "tired of waiting" might not be the best strategy in the long term.

This year everyone over 50 was able to get jab without any other conditions. I usually pay for mine, but this year it was free. I had to wait until January because of the demand though.

How Israel, with a handful of cases, made it onto the watchlist, I don't know.

If they can't manage to stay on green then nobody can.

Can you point to the evidence that shows this for pfizer? I'm asking genuinely because it seems like the UK is the only country in the world where the wait is 10-12 weeks for pfizer. I agree with you on AZ, but is pfizer like that as well? Because most of the EU is 5-6 weeks, the US/Australia/NZ is 3-4 weeks.

Can't be too careful with the Delta variant, can't risk it spreading here.

It is certainly a general principle with all vaccines so it would have been a big surprise if not true for the mRNA vaccines here. There has been evidence published this year as well which backs up this decision.

https://www.uk-cic.org/publication/e...n-older-people
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....15.21257017v1
https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/cl...archers-claim/

I am sure there were some more recent studies as well but I can't find them atm - if I do I will post links to them as well.

Hi,
Maybe drifting a little off topic here :) as there are details on uk quarantine in the uk arrivals thread on the coronavirus and travel forum
I think c-w-s in the that thread mentioned that the positivity rate from pcr tests on arrivals from Israel was rising so potentially one of the reasons
Also the bbc is reporting that the indoor mask mandate has been imposed again just after being lifted as the case levels were 219 yesterday after several weeks of very low levels.
Regards

Tbs

Happy to follow the advice the rest of the world is giving reg. time compared to the UK as the only one leaving such long gap in between. We all know nothing the UK has done ended up being the right decision at the end.

Pfizer had 3 weeks between doses because they wanted to conclude their trials as quickly as possible. Some countries are not going to do anything other than what the manufacturer chose to trial for expediency reasons.

If we are going to have boosters in winter and you are not at high risk of serious illness in the first place, then it may be acceptable individually to choose to sacrifice a bit of protection for fewer restrictions.

Given that what we know from the figures is that two doses offers significantly more protection against the Indian variant than one (most especially when it comes to AZ) and nobody has done any testing on lengthening the gap, I would be inclined to get the second jab as soon as possible after the 3 weeks is up. There's speculation that longer gaps are "better", and I can see that such might be the case for the UK generally, but I'd be inclined to mistrust what the NHS says on this - it's an organisation that doesn't care much about individual requirements and it's firmly in their interests to get people to wait.

You have learnt an important lesson about healthcare in the UK. If you want something, you have to pay for it. If it's life-threatening, then stick with the NHS but if there's the slightest elective flavour to it, go private.

but there are also higher protection rate for those who are double vaccinated as compare to those with only one jab. So basically it is a trade off.

This whole business of wearing masks in indoor public spaces, and also lockdowns where we are barred from visiting other households.... I think that's the next few years of our lives, under some sort of alert system, at the very least. Even with good vaccination rates, and good evidence vaccination stops people from going to hospital or worse, every time we drop our guard the case rate goes up pretty dramatically. Living with COVID means living with some degree of state intervention :(. As I've written elsewhere before, the real magic bullet is something anyone can take orally as soon as symptoms present and, as we've seen with vaccinations, logistics will still be a thing when that happens.

Thanks for that. Because corporate-wage-slave has definitely explained it well, but I was wondering why other countries haven't adopted this practice (to my knowledge) when it does seem to be good practice.

exactly--and thanks to the others for their input too!

up until this past year i never really took time to understand the system and differences between the NHS and my private insurance because i have been lucky to not have any concerns and because of the pandemic, finally took the time to learn the system and get my regular maintenance done which has been great! but still, much to learn.