Will you be taking a booster?

Almost all of what you said above is false on a medical and social level. The reason we are back in a semi lockdown position is because a huge number of those now in ICU and general hospital care with covid are unvaxed.

Around half are. Which means half aren't. Half of all those in medical care are vaccinated. Just in case the slow in thinking with their solitary braincell think this is some "anti vax" bollocks, this is NOT to say the vaccines have not made a major impact on our realities on the ground. They most certainly have. We'd be utterly screwed without them. However...(and no it's not one of those howevers 🙄).

We are also coming towards the end of the stated 6/9 month cycle of the first vaccine. This was all stated from day one of the covid 19 vaccine use.

Eh... no it wasn't. Not even close. Or you have a bloody short and selective memory, or have a time machine we're not aware of. Nobody was talking about 6/9 month cycles of the vaccines when they were first rolled out. There was talk of variants popping up, which might bypass the protection of the vaccines, but boosters weren't being talked about until mid summer when the Israelis were noting a drop in efficacy particularly in the old and health compromised. Indeed at the same time all the vaccine manufacturers were releasing studies showing continued efficacy against hospitalisations and death and aren't we great. A couple of weeks later; "ah yeah, boosters". Your claim that this was in play from "day one" is a bloody nonsense. Citations please or feck off with that fantasy. If you can find such citations? Fair play and I'll quite happily eat crow. With a side order of raven.

The goal of our health services are to get the hospital's back to a point where we can perform normal day to day operations.

This is the Irish health service we're discussing? The same health service that's been dealing with corridor trolley stuffed seasonal emergencies for well over a generation? I can remember this shít on the airwaves back in the 80's nigh on forty years ago.

Here's an example, I had a lump on my testicle and the operation to remove it was cancelled 3 times due to a lack of beds as ICU staff were moved to cover covid wards. My consultant in no uncertain terms went on a rant blaming unvaxed people. The head of pediatrics in Ireland made a public statement saying exactly the same. His own words were something along the lines of the unvaxed had caused him to cancel three operations that particular week to could have seen children come out of wheelchairs. How in the name of Christ is that down to a vaccine and your misunderstanding of how long they work for

I'm genuinely sorry to hear of your woes Chuck and I hope all is well with you now, but again, half of those in Irish hospitals are vaccinated. Even if we were all vaccinated, we would still see spread of this pox, as Waterford the most vaccinated region in the nation, yet with infection rates three times higher than background, showed. Your consultant can rant all he or she likes, but their explanation sounds far more like an excuse than a reason. Well both can make people feel better in the moment. But there's a sellby date on the former. The kids in wheelchairs stuff from the pediatrician is more about emotive bollocks than facts. Understandable, but still emotive bollocks. OK then. Halve the number of people with this covid pox in hospital and ICU. We're talking a few hundred overall here. What changes? Do the vaccinated sick magically reduce the problems and stresses on our system?

And the HIQA report concerns itself with immunity after infection and goes on to state: It is important to remember, however, that these are rare events. Fourteen confirmed cases at the time worldwide and the reinfection occurred with different viral strains. If you dig into the supporting literature one of the studies from Qatar that gives overall numbers involved 133,000 confirmed infections with just 4 confirmed reinfections and of all the studies there was only one death in a woman of 89 who was immunocompromised.

Where it talks about vaccination it states this: Our findings of a reduction in neutralising capacity over time suggests immunity may not be long-term. If vaccination results in a similar response, consideration may be given to the need for repeat or ‘booster’ doses.

It's "if" and "may". There was no talk of any "stated 6/9 month cycle of the first vaccine". This wasn't "all stated from day one of the covid 19 vaccine use" as that poster so confidently claimed. That's a complete bloody nonsense. Indeed, throughout it has been stated far more that vaccination gives a better, more consistent and longlasting immune response than "natural" infection. So no, theres little danger of me needing to prepare corvid on toast.

And none of the above takes away from my point that the unvaccinated are not the root of all evils as their consultant laid out in their "rant". If we didn't have the percentage of vaccinated we have, they'd have a point, but we've one of the higher percentages in Europe. According to this breakdown we're second only to the Danes, with only six odd percent not vaccinated and half of those in hospital and ICU are vaccinated. Today we've what around 500 in hospital with this pox and around 100 in ICU? Does anybody really believe that if those numbers in a perfect world were 250 and 50 that the Irish health service would be grand and back to what passes for normal? If anyone does, I have some magic beans to sell you. It's clear that the vaccines have made an enormous positive difference and the vast majority of the Irish people have taken that on board. This demonisation of the small minority with ridiculous rants and claims that they're the ones wholly at fault for the parlous state of our health service overflow capacity is a handy excuse, but that's what it is, an excuse.

Of course we can continue to maintain antibodies, via annual boosters.

Name one disease or vaccine where we've even attempted that. Never mind on a worldwide scale with quite leaky vaccines, breakthrough infections and vast reserves of the virus out there. It's simply not currently feasible. This is beginning to sound awfully like the overconfidence of "vaccines will get us out of this" - and they certainly did get us out of a huge number of people dying from this pox, but we're still living with it - only now it's being replaced by a similar overconfidence in boosters. And no the flu vaccines are not an equivalent. The disease is strongly seasonal, (generally)less dangerous, mutates more rapidly and the uptake of vaccines is tiny. And they're a completely different class of virus. Oh and flu vaccine protection can start to wane within weeks.

And you're not responding to the question around the time period regarding waning antibodies. If two jabs give "only" six months, how will three give more? Israel seem to think it's prudent to not assume that and get boosters in stock for a fourth round. You seem awfully confident in this annual timeframe, with no good reason that I can see.

It may be the immune memory protection fades - we don't know yet.

Oh it likely will going on other viral infections. Immune memory can fade over time depending on the virus. Some illicit a very strong memory, measles an obvious one, Chickenpox is similar. Essentially immunity is "lifetime" from vaccine or infection. Tetanus is only around a decade by comparison. However immune memory is more robust and longer lasting than antibody levels. Good luck with finding neutralising antibodies to measles in your blood today, you're going to have to dive deep, yet you're almost certainly immune to it. Good luck with finding flu antibodies in your blood to the previous years mutation in Summer, but you will be immune/protected against that particular strain. This was amply demonstrated with the "Russian" flu of the late 70's Because it was so similar to the "Asian" flu of the late 50's(to the degree that some suspect it was a lab escapee) that it hit those under 30 the hardest and left the over 30's alone because they had survived the earlier one and were immune/protected.

If, as you say, a really nasty variant comes along, the sad thing is that we won't know it's "really nasty" until people are badly infected with it and by then it might be a repeat of Alpha from the UK, deadly and virulent but fortunately outcompeted by vaccines and Delta.

And if a really nasty variant comes along it's just as likely to be one that evades the current vaccines, boosters or no. We've been very lucky on that score so far. TBH I was surprised not to see a strongly evading variant so far. What with waning antibody levels, which allow the virus a few days grace to reproduce before the immune memory kicks in and kicks it out. That's a fair selection pressure to mutate around the vaccines in that time. One hope is a vaccine that sees all of that family of coronaviruses as the enemy. And that may be possible. It was found in one study(that I can't find at the mo) that those who survived SARS and were vaccinated against covid 19 mounted a strong reaction to other coronaviruses even inclduing ones that hadn't made the jump to humans.

Well, we've not done a lot of corona virus vaccines have we? Wasn't the common wisdom a couple years ago that one couldn't be done?

Yes and no. It was more that there was no money in it, so little return for the industry to pursue it. Vaccines in general are or were seen as low return on investment research. Moderna, who were seen as the poster boys for mRNA technology went into vaccines as most of their other areas of treatment looked too risky to continue. Over a decade on from their founding they have only one commercial product, the covid 19 vaccine and chances are high they'd still be looking for a commercial product if a Chinese wet market dweller didn't get sniffly. There was a fair bit of research done into SARS and to a lesser extent MERS, both of which found an immunity in the survivors lasting a few years, but as those viruses faded away naturally, funding dried up.

Closest is the flu, and as you point out, that one requires annual boosters to try and avoid the worse outbreaks. Some years that doesn't even work.

Nope, it's not the closest and that wasn't my point at all. It requires boosters because the virus mutates, not because of waning immunity to existing ones. Very different. And again you keep saying annual boosters regarding covid. Two jabs apparently only give six months, the J&J only three, but somehow if you get a booster tommorrow you're likely golden until next christmas? How does that work then?

So, your recommendation is, take no boosters? That doesn't seem to follow - you agree the virus will continue to mutate (it has seen to be good at that,) at least for Omicron it's mutated into a more contagious but (at this time, based on limited information) less deadly version,

Actually the virus isn't particularly good at mutating. Certainly not like the flu viruses. If it was the original vaccines and boosters would be essentially useless.

and your recommendation is 'sit tight it will all be grand?' Feel free to take the risk but I agree with the Professor quoted in the CNN article: " ...there would be nothing more tragic to me than having someone protected by a two-dose regimen for six to eight months, and then to get seriously ill and die because they didn't get a booster."

If someone is over 60, or in bad health with pre-existing conditions leaving them open to higher risks of serious illness then boosters are a good idea in the short to medium term(I'd add in the obese of any age to that). That demographic is overwhelmingly over represented in serious illness and death stats. Covid 19 is a serious illness in the old and the sick and even then the vast majority still survive it. Now we can all wheel out examples of a 30 year old marathon runner who died from it, but they are an absolutely tiny minority, the very definition of outliers. Hell, men can die from breast cancer, but no health services are suggesting breast scans for blokes. Again, though how it still needs repeating at this stage; 90% of all deaths from covid 19 in Ireland were over 65. 40% of all deaths were in the over 85s. Of the 10% left, the majority were over 45. And that's without plugging the already very ill from other health problems into the mix.

TL;DR? Boost the old and vulnerable. Leave the wider population out of it, unless there's an actual uptick in serious illness and death seen in the under 50's(and I'd bet there won't be. There wasn't when we had no vaccines at all). Rely on immune system memory and track that as a way for us to end up living with this virus.