Boosters

I was told 6 months after 2nd dose by my GP

God that seems very delayed. Very concerning!

Good to see the 3 months of planning for the booster rollout in the UK being executed well. First target of 500K / day met yesterday and aiming for 750K / day in the next fortnight. Still on target for everyone over 50 done and dusted by the end of November.

It kinda always was, NIAC said around 6 months, minimum of 5.

Issue is, the vast majority of 60-70 due to the longer gap with AZ will not be boosted until late Dec/Jan, which is too late. If I'm not mistaken, AZ looked to have wained faster than Pfizer/noticable drop in efficacy etc...

If they extend the booster program to 50+, you could have 50 year olds getting boosted before a sizeable chunk of the 60-70 year olds.

I literally a few minutes ago got a text for a booster. I got my second shot of AZ in July.

now i don’t fall into any of the categories that would qualify for a booster, so someone is chancing their arm to get me in for one. So it’s a little over 4 months for me. So id assume they are doing the over 60s now. I waited 18 weeks to get the second jab.

also I won’t be getting the booster so turned it down. Really wish they had a stop contacting me option instead of texting new. So assume I’ll get pestered on this going forward

this was the start of the text I got:

As a person with a weak immune system, you are at higher risk of serious illness if you get COVID-19. Your doctor has referred you for an extra dose of COVID-19 vaccine for your protection.

If you go to the HSE website, I don’t qualify under any category they have listed. So it’s probably a sh!tshow again like the initial rollout to groups 4/7. By a right stretch maybe I fall into here if I had a consultant immunologist that is:

”Other immunedeficiency, meaning anyone considered immunocompromised by a consultant immunologist even if they do not fit into one of the categories specified on this page“

That's a good sign if they are reducing the gap for a booster dose for people vaccinated with AZ.

If you had your second jab in July after 18 weeks. That puts your first jab around March? AZ wasn't rolled out to the 60-70 group until late April. Unless you're cohort 4?

Has anyone been offered the third dose (for immunocompromised) and not been able to attend and received a new appointment? Daughter wasn’t able to go to hers and called the number on the text ( there was no option to text “new”), and was just told not to show up and a new appointment would be sent. It’s now more than two weeks later and no new appointment has been sent. She has tried calling the number on the text again and it just rings and rings...

I only ask as it sounds like you may have been offered a third jab and not a booster.

I was cohort 7 and got my third jab a few weeks ago. Third jab is minimum 2 months from your second dose. Booster is 5 months from your last dose.

Thanks for the insight. Seems to be an utter mess. It is terrifying not to be able to get a clear answer on what to do from anyone when we are hitting 5k cases a day.

Contact your consultant’s office and explain that you want to be put forward and added to their list for a 3rd dose. After that call, email them and ask for confirmation that you have been added to their list

Silly **** poll. Jesus people would prefer almost anything over lockdown.

But why are cabinet frustrated over NIAC? MOH can roll out the booster program without NIAC approval.

The vaccines appear to be working very well, though infection numbers are higher than they were, hospital admissions is relatively low and a considerable proportion of those appear to be from the non-vaxed population. You appear not to accept the catastrophic effect this level of infection would have had without the vaccination programme. And for the umpteenth time, no one said the vaccine would provide protection indefinitely, like many other vaccines, boosters are needed due to waning efficacy and mutations of the virus, there is no “now apparently”.

Hard to believe this still needs to be explained after all this time.

Messaging changes in response to the developing situation, do you think the Government should stick to one message and not respond to infection rates/public safety?

I think they need to be more consistent and their advisers are beginning to look they have no idea either especially by pointing at random sectors to apply restrictions to. I do think someone needs to be brave enough to come out and say, this is till February and these are restrictions we will have standing by in case we need them or if hospitals numbers get to X. Not ruling things out is a cop out as it causes uncertainty and just annoys people.