If anyone thinks boosters should be essential (other than to make up for the fact that most 1st & 2nd doses were not spaced out as widely as is perhaps optimal, which could be as long as 6 months) and/or that an annual dose should be essential, I suggest they listen to TWiV podcast 844 with Paul Offit hosted by Vincent Racaniello:I understand what you are saying @yorkie and I agree we do need exposure to the full virus, however I don't trust this government not to try and effectively make a booster an annual thing for everyone. I don't believe everyone needs an annual booster.
The key parts start around the 20 minute mark (boosters) and the 51 minute mark (annual doses)Paul Offit returns to TWiV to discuss new CDC guidance on J&J vaccine, why children should be immunized against COVID-19, and whether or not booster doses are scientifically justified.
20:48 boosters
20:50 so i think about six months ago i
20:52 wrote a blog post
20:54 reviewing why i thought that the
20:56 evidence wasn't there
20:58 supporting a booster and you wrote to me
21:00 and you and you said you agreed ....
The mainstream media do not like these podcasts because they are informative and non-alarmist.51:40 people talk about a yearly Covid 19
51:42 vaccine they're thinking of the flu
51:43 vaccine but that that is really not the
51:45 reason we would be doing it i just think
51:47 we need to explain that so for flu we do
51:48 it because of anthogenic variation
51:50 correct that's right right
They don't rule out the possibility of these being required, but the data isn't there (at least not yet) to support claims that they are required.
In other news, closer to home John Campbell remains upbeat and does not support a lockdown at this stage:
00:20 well these lockdowns all they're going
00:22 to do is delay the progress of this
00:24 omicron variant because it's in every
00:26 country in europe already so even though
00:28 the omicron levels in germany at the
00:30 moment are quite low it is there
00:32 probably two three percent of cases so
00:34 all this is going to do is delay things
00:36 by a small amount of time basically
00:38 everyone in europe needs to be ready to
00:40 be infected or exposed at least to
00:43 omicron in the next few weeks...
01:46 ...research out of hong kong shows
01:48 that the omicron virus replicates very
01:50 much in the upper respiratory tract
01:52 rather than in the lungs and this means
01:54 there's going to be an awful lot of the
01:55 virus around and people are going to be
01:57 exposed now every time someone's exposed
01:59 to the virus they will generate an
02:01 immune response that will improve their
02:03 immunity so as as millions of people
02:06 tens of millions of people in the next
02:08 few weeks in europe are going to be
02:09 exposed to the virus then then that
02:11 inevitably means that community or herd
02:13 immunity is going to be increased...
02:55... i'm
02:58 really hopeful that this sort of herd
03:00 immunity that's developing will take
03:01 over and make that make this particular
03:03 omicron variant like the other four
03:06 common cold corona viruses that we
03:09 already have because we have corona
03:10 virus infections all the time it's just
03:12 that this is a new type of coronavirus
03:14 so we're hoping that this will blend
03:16 back down into the sort of endemic viral
03:18 ecosystem that i'm afraid we all live in....
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