Covid-19: Vaccine

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord is entirely right: the second dose is important. However, it is important not for efficacy but for durability. We have put in substantial data provisions to record every single dose into every single arm, and to put a follow-up dose into exactly those arms. We are using the NIMS system and every single vaccination is put into the GP record. They will be tracked down extremely diligently for exactly the reasons that the noble Lord describes.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, a number of scientists have expressed concerns about delaying the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine. On the excellent Radio 4 programme “How to Vaccinate the World”, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter said that, as the RNA technology used is new, there is less data to give confidence on spacing. But he suggested that, given a number of people have received their first dose, now is the perfect time to do a small randomised research trial on comparing those receiving their second dose at 21 days and others receiving it at 12 weeks, which would then perhaps give more confidence. Is that happening?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

Who can hold a torch to Professor Spiegelhalter and his analysis of the data? Although I did not hear him, I completely welcome his comments. I reassure the noble Baroness that enormous efforts are being put into the pharmacovigilance around this vaccine. Some of this is of a clinical and scientific nature, and it takes a while to read out. We have therefore put in parallel systems to get an early read-out on exactly the kinds of questions that she has asked.