I’m not Jezza’s biggest fan but I dont see how you get there. NOBODY has suggested not giving the second dose, and I think it would be grossly unethical to do so.
You get there by looking forward, as I said in my post, that without increased supply, delaying only gives a very short interval of increased 1st shots, which must be ‘paid back’ a few weeks later.
The statement was “... I trust, as you receive your second dose, you will give a thought to the 80-year-old who may die because you are depriving him of his first.
The job of public health officials is to maximise public health. That is done...not by giving second doses to people who selfishly think they are more deserving than others.”
Without further explanation or statement of near term supply increase, one must assume that his statement was recommending long term delay of second shot....or the statement was improperly stated or thought out.
EDIT: while I have not followed the reporting, I believe the UK JCVI has suggested doses should be given 12 weeks apart in order to give the maximum number of people some protection while supplies are limited. This is based a small Israeli study on people over the age of 60 suggested a first dose gave just 33% protection from coronavirus. The Israeli data is preliminary data. It does involve PCR testing, which is of course asymptomatic cases as well as symptomatic cases. They have not followed up for more than three weeks and the statistical methods they used are not clear.