Will you be taking a booster?

You do know that calling people names is an extremely ineffective way to get anyone to do anything? Added to which your complete obsession on this suggests you might need a pause and reflect moment or two.

Why are we back in this mess again then if that's the case?

Because people risk-compensate, or to put it another way: the vaccines have allowed us safely gain a decent level of immunity and live fairly normal lives without the fear of serious illness from the virus.

Lots of people, myself included, speculated on probable herd immunity from vaccination, and in hindsight that seems like a triumph of hope over evidence, but in fairness that confidence was not coming from epidemiologists.

Nonetheless, I very much doubt we will be in for annual boosters, regardless of what Pfizer shareholders might wish for. This virus is novel, but it's not that novel.

This drama will eventually ebb, one way or another. In the meantime it'd be nice if we could try to remain some measure of civility, compassion and empathy and not overreact to the opinions of nutcases on the sidelines.

Boost me up baby, hook it to my veins

Remember when herd immuinity would sort it

Remember when Covid zero would sort it

Remember when the vaccine would sort it

Remember when 90% uptake would sort it

Remember when the booster would sort it . . . oh

I think it's naïve at this point to think that any one thing or multiple things will "sort it" as much as some would wish it to.

At the moment it's boosters for the vulnerable, pills for serious cases and let the virus run through everyone else while trying to keep the hospitals running. Nasal vaccines may help more on transmission, hard to see if other vaccines will make much of a different (biggest boon might be a combined flu/COVID jab that would have high annual uptake).

It's going to be interesting to see how the previously zero Covid countries get out of this now without a lot of pain.

Assuming something like, say, nosebleeds are a risk of vaccines for any disease, then yeah, the more vaccines of any time, the more likely you'll have a nosebleed.

Your mathematical probability doesn't take into account the impact of the disease versus the side-effect of the vaccine. More boosters - more chance of side effect (nosebleed). However, if its a vaccine that requires boosters - which seems to be the case in some of the vaccines in this generation, is a nosebleed more serious, than the disease? You're proposing it is. I say, nonsense. It's not simply mathematics when it comes to disease and suffering.

wut. The "flu shot" is a vaccine.

There is no such thing as mild myocarditis. That is from a doctor. You either have myocarditis or not.

Every myocarditis is dangerous and there is nothing mild about it.

There's leaders and there's followers in all walks of life. Leaders sail over the horizon to see what's there, they innovate, they explore, they chance it, they care for their community, they are calculated risk takers, they research & educate themselves, they brave it for the followers.

The followers are risk adverse, slightly craven, indecisive, hang back in the shadows & see what the leaders do, make sure it's ok and follow like sheep and usually end up working for the leaders. If things go wrong they blame the leaders, applaud their hesitancy, claim coercion and look for compensation.

It never changes.

I know so many people who took the vaccine not because they felt they needed it but because the thought it was the path to freedom. Or at least thought it would minimize the chances of getting and spreading it. Some misguidingly thought they would be immune to it, which is more worrying in that they took something and did absolutely zip research into it. That's another's day work.

Now the NPHET Government are going to have to try and convince healthy people under 40 to take it again. The reasoning be

1. It's your path to freedom

2. To reduce your chances of contracting and spreading the virus.

3. Your own safety.

When people know full well, your booster (or what Leo Varadkar has marketed as your third dose) won't be your path to no restrictions. The percentage gains of contracting/spreading the virus via a booster are minimum. And you've already had 2 doses, you are under 40 and healthy, the virus is no risk to you.

Another thing that won't get talked about in media are football matches in England being suspended because of people becoming unwell. 2 premier League games during the week being stopped because of fans becoming unwell. 1 championship game on Saturday. 3 players the week before (1 apparently unvaccinated). It's not a great a look. You are not going to stop people asking questions in the comfort of their own homes or within group chats with friends. It's happening and nobody can explain why. Or even wants to investigate it.

So if you are under 40 and healthy, what is the selling point of getting a booster? The last 2 didn't seem to have changed things much. Government/Health officials have lost trust in terms of lifting restrictions. You have a lot of unexplained stuff going on that nobody seems to want to investigate.

Sell this 3rd jab/booster to us? What is in it for us?

Yes, I think they'll get to 70-80% in Ireland. Abroad is the bigger issue. You have countries within the EU 60-70% initial take up, with their own countries posturing to say you will be considered unvaccinated if you don't get a booster. Are these countries going to get to 50% booster uptake? I would say not a chance.

So they'll essentially create a 2 tiered society. The majority are in the bottom tier (and a fair few people jabbed who are against vaccine/booster mandates too). It's not pretty around Europe at the moment. Now over the next 2 months, passes will be revoked for younger people.

Inflation blowing up. Energy shortages. Civil unrest with vaccine/booster mandates. A European Spring could be on the cards. All the whilst Vlad is rolling into Ukraine and Serbia take back East Bosnia.

Things are going to get wild.

Got my booster shot the other day. First asked if I'd had Covid in the last 6 months - got a negative PCR in October, so no. Then told about side effects being slightly more 'intense' with a risk of myocarditis and signs to watch for and actions to be taken. Then , "are you certain you want this, you CAN say no". Jab away, says I.

We're seeing the new variant in Africa, which to my reading has been caused by allowing the virus greater circulation due to lack of vaccine take up. During this round of circulation yet another strain has developed.

If getting a booster reduces the chances of further circulation of the virus and hopefully also the opportunity for it to develop a variant, gives me added protection, then I'm all for it. I'm no scientist, so I have to put my faith in the medical profession in Ireland. Which I do, with the utmost confidence.

BTW, the immediate side effects - headache, tiredness and aches were all much worse than anything I had before. Waning significantly now 48 hours later.