UK’S MIX-AND-MATCH COVID VACCINATIONS SLAMMED BY EXPERTS

Britain has allowed a mix-and-match vaccine regimen against COVID-19, with health officials saying that if a second dose of the vaccine a patient originally received isn’t available, or if the manufacturer of the first shot isn’t known, another vaccine may be substituted, Katherine J. Wu reported for the New York Times.

“There are no data on this idea whatsoever,” said John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University. Officials in Britain “seem to have abandoned science completely now and are just trying to guess their way out of a mess.”

UK has approved the emergency use of the vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and the Oxford University and AstraZeneca.

The new guidance contradicts guidelines in the United States, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has noted that the authorized COVID-19 vaccines “are not interchangeable” and that “the safety and efficacy of a mixed-product series have not been evaluated.

Both doses of the series should be completed with the same product.”

Some scientists say Britain is gambling with its new guidance. “None of this is being data driven right now,” said Dr. Phyllis Tien, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco. “We’re kind of in this Wild West.”

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