The New York Times’s UK vaccine shocker

The New York Times really does have it in for poor old Britain, doesn’t it? Not content with portraying the UK as a nation of boiled mutton eating swamp dwellers, America’s liberal paper of record is now suggesting Brits are being pumped full of a dangerous cocktail of COVID vaccines. ‘Britain Opts for Mix-and-Match Vaccinations, Confounding Experts’ screams the headline.

Britain will allow for a mix-and-match vaccine regimen: If a second dose of the vaccine a patient originally received isn’t available, another vaccine may be substituted, British health officials said. The new guidance contradicts guidelines in the U.S. https://t.co/bQv9rC3eTO

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— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 1, 2021

The reality? A different second dose will only be considered in very limited circumstances where there is an ‘immediate high risk’ to health. And that’s only if the previous type of vaccine isn’t known or isn’t available. Surely a reasonable precautionary measure if all else fails?

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As Jonathan Stoye of the Francis Crick Institute notes, such a plan ‘does not seem unreasonable and is akin to wartime medicine’. UK Department of Health officials have also been keen to emphasize this precautionary step is for exceptional circumstances only. Barely the ‘mix-and-match’ program the Times seems to suggest the UK has adopted.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.