Why should it lead to confusion?
It just needs explaining.
52% of British are very easily confused. 
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Predictably, just heard that my 2nd dose will be postponed - probably to March 
If anyone interested the JCVI paper announcing/justifying(?) the change is here:
And my comment of year award goes to⌠
Thanks for that link Paul, very interesting and I agree with your (?).
Iâve been busy all day so not had time to keep up with the discussion but I find the document a little confusing. There are no in-line references to the footnotes/sources (or have I missed them?) For example I canât find what supports the statement âgiven data indicating high efficacy from the first dose of both Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccinesâ. At this stage surely that can only be data from the companies that produce them and ran the trials.
So, in (my totally laymanâs) way I ponder, is it too soon to be able to say that about the Pfizer vaccine (and Pfizer seems to agree with me 
) and how could this data be available at all for a vaccine only approved yesterday, AstraZeneca.
Iâm not against this approach, in fact it seems sensible, but Iâd I prefer if the companies who produce the vaccines were onboard with the change in stratagy and not, as in Pfizerâs case, distancing themselves from it.
Iâd also like more transparency about who has actually made this decision (Hancock? Sage? I dunno?) and who will be held responsible should it turn out to be a mistake.
I guess my concerns are based on the fact that Johnson and Hancock have proved untrustworthy since beginning of all this. I think this shift is big thing, hopefully a good thing, but why didnât Johnson or Hancock stand up and explain this âbreakthroughâ. Theyâve been very quick to announce their other âbreakthroughsâ, which ultimately proved to be nothing of the sort.
Now Iâm pro vaccine, yet all this seems a bit shoot from the hip type stuff. It gives pause for thought so I wonder what the antivaxxers are making of it?
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It is not clear at all what evidence the JCVI are following, and Pfizer have very publicly stressed that the trial was based on two shots 21 days apart.
That said I donât think the idea is without merit - but it needs to be evaluated in a clinical trial at least as large as the initial one before we can be certain - if one shot is 70-80% effective that is as good as most other vaccines and we donât know how long immunity will last so it could even be that a booster after 3 months could give only slightly lower efficacy but much longer duration of response - but I canât help thinking this is completely unproven off the wall thinking and it is irresponsible to make changes in the vaccination programme this early and on this shaky a basis.
Of course I have no choice - I have simply been told my 2nd jab will be March 2nd, end of discussion.
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Parents can be so unreasonable.
You seem to be conflating âEnglishâ with âBritishâ.
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Maybe but I have to include Wales and N Ire
I find it worrying.
Yes Fleur, I saw that on the news last night. The responses from medical professionals to the Tweet you reference make disturbing reading. Even if this is the right thing to do (and nobody seems sure it is) itâs been done in a high-handed, slipshod manner.
Hereâs Whitty and the CMO crewâs missive trying to pull doctors back in line. It all looks rather unprofessional to me. And the CMOs expect the public to trust them 
Without wishing to be too pedantic (heaven forbid!) the current UK passport is for citizens of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, whilst the British Isles is of course a geographical term that (inconveniently for some) includes the Republic.
I wouldnât have bothered to make my initial response were it not for the fact that English people all too frequently, in contexts from Brexit to Duolingo, treat âEnglishâ and âBritishâ as being synonymous.
A recent apparent reversal, yet closely related version of this trope is Johnsonâs increasingly frequent faux-Churchillian references to the âBritish peopleâ, âBritishâ this, that and the other (though not the last one!)â in the pathetic hope that it will somehow undermine Scotsâ very understandable desire for independence from the Union and re-admittance to the EU.
Yes I appreciate that, lets see what happens to Scotland.
Thanks, thatâs a generous response
At least it is not out and out lies.
I have heard that GPs are worried that their patients might feel that trust might be affected between themselves and their patients.
Scottish independence really would be âwonderful newsâ for my family - it would give my step daughter and many other relatives and friends a route back to EU citizenship.
I also suspect the coming UK constitutional crisis (whether or not it finally results in its breakup) will be very good not only for Scotland, but for England, Wales and Ireland too.
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Johnson may be the campaign leader and then PM who initiated events that led to the independence of Scotland and the reunification of Ireland. That would certainly earn him a place in history. Mind, not a very good place from a UK perspective.
Or perhaps simply, not a very good place from an English perspective.
Itâs interesting that the unification of Ireland seems a ânaturalâ step in re-unifying a geographical entity, whereas the possibility Scotland breaking away from the so-called United Kingdom is the absolute reverse, yet it seems equally possible and ânaturalâ.
Certainly, to my mind, presentday Scotland has more in common with the small progressive EU Baltic states than it does with England.
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