Will you be taking a booster?

I'll stay safe because I'm vaccinated and disregarding FUD from posters like you on public forums.

Genuinely getting worried about how I’m going to get this booster when my age group opens, probably in January.

I can’t stand in a queue for long due to back problems. So I’m going to be in a scramble for pharmacy appointments.

I’m not sure if I can arrange it though my GP. I don’t think I really meet any of the criteria for being disabled or anything, but I would be in absolute agony if I had to stand in line for an hour. I don’t think I could physically do it.

I was barely able to bring the car for an NCT due to a 10 min queue. Ended up perched against the railings. There was no where to sit - they’ve closed the waiting area and it was raining. So I had to call a relative to basically come and wait outside and in the interim I sat on a kerb in the rain while the car was tested.

I'm rapidly realising nobody thinks about accessibility in this covid regulation stuff.

Trying to sort it out but getting nowhere and so far haven’t been diagnosed with anything but I’m beginning to suspect arthritis.

I seem to spend my time these days planning how to get from point A to point B using props like carrying a strong golf umbrella or taking a trolley in the supermarket etc etc

Sometimes I’m fine, sometimes I’m not. It’s all a bit random.

Anyway, just from a practical point of view, how am I going to go about this without an individual appointment if the pharmacies are full?

I’ll ring the GP and see if they’re doing them. I’ve sort of had a mess during covid because my original GP retired and closed his practice entirely and I’ve been “between doctors” since. I’ve used a few walk in GP clinics as none of the local practices would take on any new patients (private ones.) I rang 3 of them and just got told they weren’t taking anyone, so I did a phone consultation about the back with one of those city centre walk in clinics and that’s been about as much contact as I’ve had with doctors.

I went to a couple of random GPs when I had particularly bad issues but that’s been about all. I should probably hit the phones and see if I can find a proper one.

The “flu shot” is a vaccination. It’s just one for a rapidly mutating and adapting virus.

The COVID vaccines so far have been just getting the dosing right. The boosters haven’t been different vaccines for new strains, which actually shows that targeting the spike protein is pretty effective as it’s been working against all the strains thrown at it.

You might find that in a few years time the mRNA vaccine dosing regimen is maybe more spread out or there’s some change in the quantities used. The Pfizer / BioNTech approach was to keep the doses very low.

The issues haven’t been the same as the flu vaccine though, so far anyway. As the same vaccine has continued to work for variants. It’s just had issues with fade over time. That’s not unusual for vaccines and you’ll likely find they’ll overcome that with something less inconvenient than multiple boosters. Some of the hepatitis vaccines for example require 3 doses and other vaccines may require boosters at various stages eg: tetanus shots. It’s nothing particularly unusual to need boosted vaccines.

Tbh, it’s not hypocritical. Make a donation to UNICEF’s vaccine programme and put some political pressure on if you can.

You not getting a booster is not going to solve a global supply chain issue. It will just render your existing vaccines ineffective and possibly add burden to a public health system that’s already under pressure.

The global vaccine issues need money, manufacturing capacity and the relaxing of patents. Those are the only things that will solve them. They need literally billions of doses produced. Absolutely make some political noise to TDs and MEPs.