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Coronavirus
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Benjsh
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I think the whole thing now is in danger of becoming a bit of a joke. I have had two vaccines this year, one in June and the second in July. Now I'm being told that I need a third already? Will I need a 4th by Easter when another strain appears somewhere in the world? When does this stop?
Are they making it up as they go along? I read they believed it would give us lifetime immunity with two doses and now it seems that we'll be having a boosters annually that will only tackle the previous mutation and MIGHT not do anything against upcoming ones.
The way the Vaccine programme was rolled out in the UK was impressive no doubt. However the communication aspect of it has been very poor indeed. Nobody seems sure which one is the best, how long it protects us and how many we are going to need.
I don't think the take up for the booster will be very high at all in the under 50's. I'm not sure I will be having it just yet.
Are they making it up as they go along? I read they believed it would give us lifetime immunity with two doses and now it seems that we'll be having a boosters annually that will only tackle the previous mutation and MIGHT not do anything against upcoming ones.
The way the Vaccine programme was rolled out in the UK was impressive no doubt. However the communication aspect of it has been very poor indeed. Nobody seems sure which one is the best, how long it protects us and how many we are going to need.
I don't think the take up for the booster will be very high at all in the under 50's. I'm not sure I will be having it just yet.
Jb85
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I agree with what you have said here, but I think the simple answer is - they don’t know!
I agree with you though it’s damn clear we’re not being told the truth about things
pluk
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Yes, of course they are. They are dealing with a new disease with entirely unknown long term effects and even newer mutations, everything can only possibly be based on best educated guesses and playing the odds.
I don't know why this is a surprise to people. It's basically the case with all medical intervention to anything.
Rob
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I think a lot of it is unclear because science does not even know yet. However I don't recall it ever being believed that two doses would give us a lifetime of protection. It is important to remember that the vaccines do not just stop offering any protection after 6 months, they just lose some effectiveness. Antibody levels in the body decline over time, and the boosters bring these levels right back up. I do think an annual Covid vaccine is going to become a thing.
There is also talk that AZ gives more of a T cell response than the mRNA vaccines, which can lead to longer protection from severe disease. But even there, not enough is known.
I will be getting my booster. And I would expect that boosters will become what you need to have to be allowed to travel abroad from some point next year.
Benjsh
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Then don't come out saying we're confident of lifetime immunity if that's the case. That's what I read about Pfizer and Moderna and I had the latter of those for my two doses.
They saying this isn't true now then? They seem to be giving Pfizer and Moderna out to be people for the booster jab too and I already have Moderna vaccine in me.
It is all just a bit of a shambles right now. I'm not anti vaccine whatsoever either as I had mine. But this is never going to end. There will be mutations for the next 5 to 10 years now it's out there.
pluk
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I don't remember it ever being sold that way, but you can certainly be confident of something which turns out not to happen, as many of my dead cert even money nags can testify to. No one, not even the best most informed scientist, could KNOW what the virus would do in the future. Again, this isn't surprising.
If you are refereeing to my statement I didn't mean it as you've intended. What I mean is at the moment it's looking better than expected but as I also said it give the scientists time to work out what the mutation is like and how it reacts. I will have to apologise for my poor English skills, never been very good at gramma and spelling.
Benjsh
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Banning people from travelling internationally too makes no sense at all to me either given that quite a few of the confirmed cases of this new variant have been found in fully vaccinated travellers. Being vaccinated clearly doesn't stop you carrying it so why does it matter for flying purposes?
Benjsh
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It wasn't sold that way or guaranteed. They said they had sufficient confidence it would give us a certain degree of lifetime protection and that it was our way out of this mess.
Now we're at the stage of booster jab for all adults and 4th jab already in the works for the vulnerable 1%.
Numbers will drop off significantly now I would have thought.
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Rob
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I was under the impression from quite a while back that there would end up being annual Covid vaccines just like there are annual flu vaccines. That is looking increasingly likely. Antibody protection reduces over time, that is a known fact, so you are going to get re-infections or infections of the vaccinated. What is not know is how good the underlying longer term protection is, as it is far too early to have made any judgement on that.
Can't help but feel you are massively over reacting to this? Calling it a shambles is just nonsense. You say that this is never going to end, and you are right. Covid will be with us until the day both you and I die. We need to find ways to live with it and right now vaccination allows us to do that.
I guess the other option is to stop boosters, see what happens with longer term protection and then if hospital admissions and deaths start getting out of hand again we lockdown. I know which my preferred option is, and it is not lockdown!
The fact that we're going onto 3rd and 4th doses so quickly, might show that the vaccines aren't as effective as people might have hoped, and they might show that scientists are quite concerned about this new variant. However, what's the alternative? It's not like we've got a better vaccine. It might be that in another year or two we have better treatments, and that the solution is to let people get covid and then give them the treatments. The problem is that the NHS is already very stretched. With the current treatments on the market, we're not going to be able stop the NHS getting overwhelmed if we don't take reasonable steps to slow it down.
Having said that, a scientist did say on the news earlier that he believes boosters are more effective after 6 months than 3 months. I'm coming up to four months since my second dose. Will I get the booster at the first opportunity, or give it another couple of months? I'm honestly not sure yet.
Having said that, a scientist did say on the news earlier that he believes boosters are more effective after 6 months than 3 months. I'm coming up to four months since my second dose. Will I get the booster at the first opportunity, or give it another couple of months? I'm honestly not sure yet.
Plastic Person
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I can understand why people are frustrated, but I think it's important to make a distinction between how scientists and virologists "make it up as they go along", and the way in which the current UK government twist their advice and do the same.
Benjsh
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Don't think you've quite understood what i meant there and maybe I didn't word it very well. I'm certainly not against the vaccine or vaccines in general. I wouldn't have had mine if I was. I'm not anti booster either. Personally don't see any harm in giving the 1% a booster as they had their doses earlier than all of us so they are due one now.
I'm just saying I'm potentially onto my 3rd jab within 6 months. That's the bit I don't get. Why would I need a booster so soon? I had my 2nd dose end of July and it's now only end of November? It's the logic and timing I'm questioning not the actual vaccine itself really.
jon81uk
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I don't recall being promised lifetime immuinity. I was expecting like flu we would need annual boosters.
Also it ias been found the third dose increases the resistance to covid to over 90% (based on Delta), which is far higher than the two weeks after the second dose. So personally I don't see why anyone wouldn't want to get it given the huge boost to immunity. Those who had AstraVenica see a much bigger boost than the Pfizer ones. I cannot find the graphs I saw which supported this but this link gives some https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...gainst-symptomatic-covid-19-in-adults-over-50
We won't know for another 6-12 months what the long-term effectiveness will be and how often boosters will be needed in the future.
But given this booster has increased protection to a far higher level than the first two doses I expect it might go to annual, it might go to every two years.
Well now we have confirmation of a new variant they have changed the travel requirements, banning travel from some countries and bringing back PCR testing instead of lateral flow.
Yes vaccination doesn't drop the chance of spreading covid significantly (although it does a bit) but it means if you do catch it you are at less risk if being seriously ill, therefore putting less pressure on health services if you catch it when travelling. It was a sensible change once we were largely vaccinated and dealing just with Delta.
pluk
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You probably don't need a booster vaccination yet. You'd probably be fine without it. That's
probably the case for the vast majority of the population.
When you are dealing with the lives of millions of people is probably good enough? If it falls the wrong side of anticipated probability what is the cost in lives and financially? Potentially catastrophic beyond anything we can reasonably imagine. What is the cost in lives and financially of giving boosters? Miniscule on both fronts in comparison.
It's an odds game, the odds make sense.