Will you be taking a booster?

titan18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271616#Comment_118271616

There's no data on it being safe to take 5/6 doses though, or how safe that is long term to keep injecting yourself with what will be different vaccines? Are you ok with in effect this being a human trial then?

There’s plenty of scientific evidence that it’s safe. The boosters went through clinical trials and passed EMA, FDA and other agencies requirements to be rolled out.

They’re also in very widespread use. The vaccines being used are also the exact same formulations that have been in use since the start of the rollout.

There’s also a lot of evidence that they’ve worked very effectively where they have been rolled out extensively. There are a few countries that began their initial programmes several months ahead of us that are much further down this route already.

You’d rather go with the “let the virus wash through the population” experiment, which ended up with a lot of very busy undertakers where it was tried.

What I do not want is to end up being infected or reinfected with a still very novel virus which has all sorts of unpredictable consequences including things like loss of smell and taste on the mild end of what it can do. So I’m going to give my immune system a fighting chance to be able to recognise and kill it before, what is a very poorly adapted bat virus has a chance to go running riot around my body.

titan18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271664#Comment_118271664

I fair doubt there's any evidence ATM that giving someone 5/6 doses of the vaccine is safe. We know 2 is, in the short term anyway, as there's no longer term studies here as that time hasn't happened. They won't be testing things that haven't happened yet.

Of course I'll take the booster. While I'm in excellent health I'd deeply regret not having taken these steps to avoid or minimise transmission of a deadly virus to Friends and Family who are not as healthy as I am.

We also know that three doses is safe because that’s been trialled, tested and analysed before being licenced.

We take annual flu boosters (at least many people do) without any consequences. We also take other multiple dose vaccines like tetanus boosters and so on without consequences, other than not getting the diseases they are giving your immune system the information to combat.

They’re being rolled out after clinical trials on each step of this and by very conservative regulatory agencies like the EMA and FDA. They’re usually getting attacked for being too slow, but that’s precisely why they’re slow. The testing and data analysis is very thorough.

Lumen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271634#Comment_118271634

Like it or not, we're all in a "human trial" whilst the virus is widely circulating. It's called "novel coronavirus" for a reason.

I think it's fair to say that different people have an instinctive preference for vaccines vs infection which is not completely evidence-based. This comes over time and time again in threads all over this forum.

Perhaps because I'm a naturally pessimistic person, I fully expect to be exposed to the virus sooner or later, and probably more regularly as time goes on. I just can't fathom how that could be safer without a vaccine that has prepared my immune system, so I prefer to take the vaccines recommended by experts based on what I believe to be solid (but necessarily incomplete) data rather than just running the gauntlet unvaccinated.

For me, there is really no difference in decision making between the initial doses and the booster. In both cases I'll be doing it because doing so leaves me better protected.

Do I have minor anxiety about inflammatory side-effects? Sure. But every vaccine causes inflammation, it's a natural part of the immune response. And as has been discussed repeatedly, this virus (and others) cause these same effects and more, and more seriously. But again, since I pessimistically think that it's inevitable that I'm exposed to the virus, I'd rather build immunity first from a non-infectious source.

The reality is that SARS-Cov-2 is a poorly adapted bat virus that’s made a jump and it’s capable of producing a lot of very unpredictable results. We won’t know what kind of damage it has done for years to come and all the Long COVID issues would seem to indicate it has caused some people a lot of issues.

It’s a natural, but so is Ebola, HIV, TB, Zika Virus, Malaria, Syphilis, arsenic, uranium, being eaten by a shark, bitten by a poisonous snake etc etc

Natural isn’t always particularly good for you.

I take the flu shot knowing some years it is worse than others but it is highly effective at keeping the flu at bay for me and those known to me who aren't as healthy as I am.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271323#Comment_118271323

See I don’t agree.

The booster is not just to protect the vulnerable, it’s to reduce transmission (if that’s what it does as claimed by the pharma companies).

Its crazy to think people reckon they’ll get “normality” by looking after themselves.

As a species we should be combating covid not individually.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271428#Comment_118271428

Well, they really did sell that vaccines are the way out of this, once you have your one or two doses and we signed up for that. It all depends on what your rationale is for jabs. If you are largely fear free of COVID, feel you've done your bit for the country, think it won't affect you or just got it to have a normal life two doses is enough. An extremely low hospitalisation rate also reduces that sense of urgency. A 70% rate will be a good outcome, 80% excellent.

vriesmays

Covid vaccine are for people who bought Eircom shares.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271788#Comment_118271788

People have different opinions, that's life. Not all are civic minded like you and we make choices according to how we perceive things. I agree on the species thing BTW but it's a bit rich to claim that given how little of the world is vaccinated and we're busy handing out boosters to people who probably don't need them.

Danno

Won't be bothering to get a "booster".

It's becoming clear that the vaccines in their current form only slow spread for around ten weeks before cases rise again. Experts: Vaccine immunity waning, signs Israel facing fifth COVID wave - Israel News - Haaretz.com The vaccines stop spread debate looks like it is settled.

Everything I've seen suggests to me that the virus wins, end of. All this pussyfooting around with mass vaccination, restrictions, lockdowns, testing and tracing is a complete and utter waste of time.

The vaccines have their usefulness in protecting the elderly and vulnerable and keeping hospitalisations low - that is their main trump card. As for vaccinating kids and healthy young adults, waste of time. It would be much better to ship out these vaccines to countries struggling to vaccinate their elderly and vulnerale.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271821#Comment_118271821

I agree we should be handing out 1st and 2nd dose to 3rd world countries but again if the vaccine reduces transmission we should be vaccinating everyone and yes, shock horror, that includes kids.

Kids can and transmit covid. If the vaccine reduces transmission then kids should be vaccinated.

The only thing is, do the vaccines reduce transmission as the pharma company’s claim?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271838#Comment_118271838

You say above that you are not "bothered".

Based on this post I don't think that is true. In actuality you are actively advocating for immunity of the population through infection with all the certainty of morbidity which that entails. Please stop misrepresenting your position.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118242894/#Comment_118242894

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271700#Comment_118271700

We also know that three doses is safe because that’s been trialled, tested and analysed before being licenced.

The vaccines have only been in human subjects for 18 months, some are using a medical technology that hasn't been in human subjects before covid. Moderna after over a decade and squillions of quid in research and development have only one commercial product to show for it and one that was quite understandably trialled rapidly for market. Their covid vaccine. If covid 19 hadn't shown up chances are very high they'd be still looking for approval for a commercial product.

And that's two doses. Three doses have only been in play for three months since Israel started that. If I light a ten minute fuse on a stick of dynamite, I could quite reasonably claim it's all good at eight minutes. If I light a milllion ten minute fuses on a million sticks of dynamite, I can still quite reasonably state it's all good at eight minutes. It is a complete nonsense to stridently claim it's safe, or indeed stridently claim it's not safe at this stage. They probably are going by the 18 month mark and certainly safer than covid 19 particularly in vulnerable groups, but nobody can confidently claim anything beyond that.

They’re being rolled out after clinical trials on each step of this and by very conservative regulatory agencies like the EMA and FDA.

Whatever about the EMA the FDA has long been guilty of pandering to politics and economics and a half million Americans dead from opioid overdoses would agree. That's before their approval of Rezulin and Vioxx and growth hormones in their food. The list is a long one. I'd not use them as a great example tbh.

Lumen

@Wibbs wrote

The vaccines have only been in human subjects for 18 months

The virus has only been in human subjects for 24 months.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271944#Comment_118271944

And? That negates precisely none of the points I made with regard to what I see as Octopod's remarkable confidence in their position. One can't claim medium to long term safety, or not, after short term observations. You certainly can't claim it after three months adding to the existing doses. That's ridiculous. And again I stated they're safer than catching covid 19 for vulnerable groups.

banie01

Have got mine. 1st vaccine was the AZ, booster dose was Pfizer.

I am nominally in the "at-risk" group with that label of pre-existing condition (a couple actually).

The booster is an effort to prevent serious illness for me. To prevent my being any further drain on medical resources and staffing than I already am.

I would firmly be in the camp of mitigation and prevention being our best course through this. The baseline mortality is completely the wrong way to look at the issue of Covid, vaccines and indeed the efforts to constrain transmission.It is the number of hospitalisations, even those without an ICU intervention that need to be considered IMO. Further to that is the ongoing rise of "long-covid" and the additional burdens that will place on our future healthcare.

The vaccines mitigate those risks and can reduce both current and future burden. I already take a flu vaccine every year and will take the pneumonia vaccine when it's offered. The likelihood is that Covid will be joining that roster of annual vaccinations given its proclivity to mutate.

Long before Covid we knew our health services struggle with respiratory illnesses every winter. Flu vaccine uptake was low and masking not ever a thing. Last year we had near zero incidence of Flu and flu related death. That is for me at least, a solid reason to consider wearing a mask out and about when I'm sniffly. Not to stop me catching anything but, to reduce my chances of spreading either flu or Covid. That and it also keeps my face warmer than my beard ever did.

Honestly, I’m not spending my afternoon debating with conspiracy theorists. Your mind is obviously made up on the issue and there’s very little point in discussing it further. If you’re accusing the EMA (and multiple other very competent regulatory bodies) of being corrupt in this, you’re really off into la la land.

I’ve read as much published scientific material on this as as I can and I’m far more comfortable facing this vaccinated than not.

Life is about risk balance. There are no perfect options. If we were to entirely eliminate all risks, we would never leave our bunkers or do anything.

All anyone can do is minimise risk and maximise chances of a long life.

Lumen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271967#Comment_118271967

And again I stated they're safer than catching covid 19 for vulnerable groups.

They're safer than catching covid 19 for all groups.

I'm over fifty and had the single shot Jansen vaccine last June. According to the general concensus, ( I know Wibbs doesn't agree), I've been going around pretty much unvaxxed since September. I'm relatively healthy, not immuno compromised.

I'm not going to get the booster.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118272058#Comment_118272058

They're safer than catching covid 19 for all groups.

Incorrect - some folks have died from the vaccine albeit thankfully on rare enough occasions.

I don't understand this desire for booster vaccines for healthy individuals while the elderly and vulnerable in other countries are awaiting their first shots.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118272262#Comment_118272262

Your "incorrect" statement doesn't negate the statement that was made.

They're safer than catching covid 19 for all groups.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118272294#Comment_118272294

Some of the folks who died from taking the vaccine would most likely be alive today - even if they had contracted the wild virus.

The original statement would have been more correct if they had said "They're safer than catching covid 19 for many groups."

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118272308#Comment_118272308

Still doesn't invalidate the original statement!

Multipass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118271428#Comment_118271428

How about if the main course made you ill, would you still force down your dessert?

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118272001#Comment_118272001

Honestly, I’m not spending my afternoon debating with conspiracy theorists.

I'm a conspiracy theorist now eh? This is the perfect bloody example of silliness around the subject. In both directions too. Minds shut down, fingers go in ears, people only see what they want to see. Because I point out that it is beyond daft to so stridently claim any long term outcome, good, bad, or indifferent based on short term results and in the case of boosters it's just over three months short term that makes me a tinfoil hattist?

I'd bet the farm if the search worked around here you'd have posters confidently stating that the vaccines gave 100% protection against serious illness and death as one Professor Hugh O'Neill did not so long ago and he's a qualified immunologist(which in his case was beyond moronic a statement to make). Boosters weren't even a thing until Israel saw drop offs in protection against infection and serious illness in older people particularly. If anyone had suggested in say March of this year that we'd apparently be in dire need of bi annual boosters and would be rushing to get them out, no doubt they'd be considered a bit of a "conspiracy theorist" by some too. And they'd be just as silly for the exact same reason, they'd have been pulling that idea out of their arses at the time because short term results can't predict medium and long term outcomes with such confident certainty.

The emergence of Omricon further illustrates the kneejerk reactions and forming into camps daftness. On the one hand you have some losing their marbles in panic at this new armageddon calling for more restrictions, on the other you have the it looks pretty harmless like a common cold, including the same O'Neill eejit.

“So it has picked up a piece of another virus, a cold virus called 229E and that could make it more like a cold which would be tremendous,” he said.

While it is likely Omicron is more infectious, there would be no need to worry, Prof O’Neil said, as it may lead only to a "mild illness".

“If this turns out to be a cold, then there’s no need to worry about re-infection, it’s just another cause of a common cold,” Prof O’Neill said.

“It has hijacked a piece of the common cold which makes it unusual but if it becomes more like a common cold then we are going to have a mild illness.

Eh, that's an awful lot of supposition, which is all fine and dandy, but the same sequence is also found in HIV and that's hardly harmless and like the common cold, is it? He's doing the same thing, making wild predictions on very short term evidence. It seems to be fashionable of late and has been since this pox emerged and not just from Karen's on ArseBook convinced a vaccine gave them a squint in their left eye and rendered them infertile. This has been the case with way too many in the scientific community too. Particularly those who get a horn when a microphone is stuck in front of them.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118272699#Comment_118272699

To be fair that’s a great post.

You bet whatever farms you like and lose, certainly on anything I’ve ever posted or said anywhere.

As far as I was concerned the data has shown that the vaccines were proven to give protection for a window of about 6 months or so. That was the spec. To stop the bodies piling up and that was had been happening before they were rolled out. What was happening in the pre vaccine stage or the pandemic was absolutely without precedent in any the context of modern era medicine.

There were never any claims beyond that, just a hope that the immunity would be lasting. Some people (notably political figures) have over promised, but that isn’t the fault of the vaccines or the technology.

I’ve never been under any illusion of anything else. If others were, that’s their lack of paying any attention to the data.

Ireland got off *relatively* lightly due to low population density and fairly serious social measures and a population that, despite being rather lacking in a any ability to give itself any kind of credit for anything, by and large looked after each other and contained it fairly well, without going hysterical (unlike some places …)

Restrictive social measure are something I would absolutely not like to see happen again, as I believe they were hugely damaging to both the economy and society. We’ve had 2 years of lost social interaction, messed up education, lack of ease of travel etc etc. That’s not good and should be avoided.

The solutions this have to be technical. The social approaches are only usable in a dire emergency and cannot go on indefinitely.

The evidence to-date on the booster has been a huge uptick in immunity, which may indicate that the primary and secondary doses were too close together or were very conservative. It’s notable that Moderna seemed to fade far less and was using a much larger dose of the mRNA material. There isn’t really much of a technical difference between the two mRNA vaccines. However, Pfizer/BioNTech were far more conservative in that, basically approaching it with a “less is more” type philosophy to minimise risk and also, likely, maximise available doses earlier on in the rollout, as production was both very tight and wasn’t easily scalable at speed.

There’s very good evidence these vaccines work and are safe. The dosing regimen of vaccines always takes time and is complicated when it comes to hitting a “sweet spot”. My take on it is that’s where we are with this right now.

To start throwing accusations of corruption at the EMA etc is really going down the rabbit hole of conspiracy. There’s nothing to back that assertion. They were as conservative and apolitical as they could be, despite huge political and media criticism of them not moving as fast as the U.K. or US counterparts.

Their process went to completion.