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The vaccine actually gives more like 90% after first dose. The 50% figure includes the protection after the first week before the body has built up the antibodies (which is about 10% protection). So really the second dose is about longevity rather than protection.
Additionally with the more traditional vaccines (like the Oxford one) there is lots of evidence that a later second dose significantly prolongs the protection. However there is no evidence of this with the Pfizer (but no evidence to the contrary either)
jb000
The way I understand it, the two part vaccine gives you about 50% protection after the first dose. The second dose increases this to around 80%. I’m guessing the thinking is that it’s initially more effective to get twice as many people protected to 50% and play catch-up later with the second dose.
Let’s say you have 100,000 doses available in time x. You can either have an initial protection rate of 80% of 50,000 people = 40,000, or 50% of 100,000 = 50,000.
It’s probably way more complicated than that.