No 10’s top vaccine advisory group will meet today to consider whether or not all Britons should be offered booster COVID vaccines this autumn.
Health chiefs said a decision is expected imminently, with experts now trying to agree on precisely who will need a top-up jab, but one adviser on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which guides ministers on the rollout, hinted that only a fraction of the population, the most vulnerable will be offered boosters.
Professor Adam Finn warned more evidence was needed before the panel could make a sound decision on a much broader booster programme, and he said giving third doses to entire age groups wouldn’t make very much difference in the battle against the virus.
Meanwhile, the US yesterday confirmed that top-up jabs would be available for all over 18s from September 20, and it appears that the British Government want to follow suit and has set out plans to dish out boosters at the same time as the flu vaccine at the start of next month, but ministers won’t press ahead with any move until they obtain advice from the JCVI.
Experts have questioned whether top-ups are even needed yet, saying there’s no real proof that protection given by two doses has started to decline.
This is despite a major study today showing double jabbed Brits who catch the Delta COVID variant are just as likely to spread the virus as the unvaccinated.
A World Health Organisation boss yesterday compared booster rollouts to giving life jackets to people who already have them, while others drown.
The same argument, that additional doses should be given to third world countries, was used to argue against vaccinating children.
Professor Adam Finn told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he thought there was enough evidence, and that he believed that they’ll be imminently deciding and that there will be some people who will need a third dose, especially people who they know will very unlikely be well protected by the first two doses.
But he said that they need more evidence before they can make a sound decision on a much broader booster programme, and he said that discussing the potential of expanding the vaccine rollout to all over 12s was difficult to predict which way that was going to go.
However, it doesn’t matter if they decide against boosters now, we all know that in a few weeks or a few months they will reverse that decision and they will go ahead anyhow because they just can’t make their minds up and it appears that they’re just as whimsical as a child.
And also, if they do decide to just give the vaccines to the vulnerable, once most of them have the boosters it will be extended to other groups and ultimately everyone, especially if you want your passports kept up to date.
Only the vulnerable would perhaps benefit from the vaccine, but if boosters are needed, it casts serious doubt on whether the vaccines work at all, but of course, big pharma wants to jab as many arms as possible because it equals profit, and what big pharma wants, big pharma gets, and all they see is money signs in their eyes.
We were told that two jabs would give immunity, and now it turns out that it doesn’t, so perhaps I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt so that they can stick my third jab in Boris Johnson’s plump rump!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 