The difference in benefit between one and two doses is pretty small in absolute terms. Props to the UK for prioritizing that first dose to maximize public health (almost makes up for bumbling earlier parts of the COVID-19 response). Second, many of the people vaccinated in the UK are getting single-dose vaccines, not Moderna or Pfizer/Bio.
Another example where the "precautionary approach" turned out to be the wrong one - first doses first was self-evidently the way to go if you read the data that came out of the clinical trials.
Personally, as a (broadly) pro-european UK citizen - there's a _moral_ case that, sometime soon, we should make the case for exporting doses now we've covered off the most vulnerable in our own country. A dead person is a dead person.
And I'm _utterly dismayed_ that the EU's behaviour has obliterated any chance of that getting off square 1. Johnson is a populist - any move to restrict contractually-entitled exports by the EU will have the red-top press screaming blue murder and will back him into a corner. I'd fully expect a destructive spiral from there on out - starting with him blocking PZ precursor chemicals being shipped to the EU from Yorkshire. We should be shifting the conversation to "haven't we done well; now is the time to help our friends and neighbors".
They’re not using single-dose vaccines. But they are prioritizing (getting the first dose into as many people as possible) over (getting everybody who had the first dose their second dose the exact number of days later).
