I wonder how the other English speaking country in the world is being governed.  (Not that the current administration is doing this nation any great favors, either.)

I know their Prime Minister follows the ilk of TheDonald.  But, I had no idea how little he cared for the safety of his citizenry.  I guess he really is just like TheDonald.

First, the UK has authorized the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and being produced by AstraZeneca.  (This vaccine is based upon placing genetic material from SARS-CoV-2 into a weakened cold virus. That makes this vaccine version what one would call a conventional anti-virus vaccine, as opposed to the messenger RNA vaccines that Pfizer and Moderna are championing in the States.)  While there was much promise for this vaccine, it encountered problems during its clinical trials.  It got more complicated because the protocol needed some ‘time out’ to determine if a negative result was due to the vaccine itself or some other cause.

But, once the trial resumed, we found out that part of the trial followed the wrong protocol.  A good portion of the testing used an initial dose of ½ that was in the design.  And, while that off-protocol use was executed, the results were actually better than the results from the required protocol.  Yup!  Using a ½ initial dose followed by the second (full) dose provided 90% effectiveness.  As opposed to 62% or so when both doses were identical.

That flub required the vaccine to undergo additional testing.   The US expects to obtain results from the reformulated testing in early February.  (That means, assuming the results are positive, that the drug won’t be in use in the States until April 2021.)

But…

The UK approved the vaccine before the proper protocol was complete.  (You do recall how TheDonald wanted vaccines approved before testing was complete, right?  Well, that’s exactly what the UK has just done.)

If that were the only bizarre action, one could argue that including the improper protocol in the test results could still provide enough data to approve the vaccine via emergency protocol.  (That’s the lessened proviso by which the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are being proffered to US citizenry.)

(Part of the reason for the push to accept the Oxford variant is that no special handling is needed for the drug; it requires just normal refrigeration.  And, it’s also cheaper.  And, if AstraZeneca doesn’t default on its promises, they will provide 3 billion doses of the vaccine this year.)

But, no, the UK went even further off the rails.

They have decided that instead of the 21 day hiatus between Pfizer inoculations and the 28 day period between Moderna vaccinations (both of these vaccines require two times doses), they would delay the second set of inoculations by three months…

In so doing, the UK expects to partially protect more people quicker.  (This sentence should read, “The UK expects to leave its people vulnerable, while fooling them into thinking they are protected.“)

Yes, there is data that the single dose of Moderna or Pfizer vaccine provides folks a 50% or so protection value.  But, that result is simply not clear for the Oxford vaccine.  (Oxford also claims the second dose can be delayed as long as 12 weeks after the first.  However, that wasn’t part of the testing protocol, either.  The longest folks waited between doses was 42 days.)  And, if TWO doses provide 62% effectiveness, what sort of protection would only one dose provide?  Which is a real problem as hospital bed availability is negligible right now due to the second and third waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I’m glad I’m not living in the UK.

But, that’s a smug response.  Because here in the States, there is a push to cut the Moderna dose in half.  To give two doses- each at half strength- to folks between 18 and 55, because SOME data indicates this age group may get protection by this protocol.  given the dearth of viable data, it is way too dangerous to lull Americans into false security.

Wasn’t 4 years of TheDonald and his ilk enough?