Hmm, that's not how it worked for me. It wouldn't allow me to book a new one without cancelling the previous one. But either way, even if anti-vaxxers have found a way around this story just blames them without a shred of evidence. Even just a reference to someone checking audit logs would be a million times more compelling than this badly written story. Methinks some hack has been "researching" social media threads and picked up on a claim like this & run with it.
Indeed. I find the focused demonisation of "antivaxxers" very worrying.
I had the first 2 jabs, but after due consideration I haven't had and won't have the booster.
My reluctance has several reasons, not least of which is that I had significant side-effects after the first jab (effects not mentioned/acknowledged but pretty common in women I found out afterwards). Also I have had COVID, plus I do have an underlying allergy/inflammation issue and am concerned about the possible effect of the viral vector jab. However, I cannot get both sides of the picture as most "non-positive" info about the vaccines has vanished. I have a friend with an inflammatory condition who was very ill after the RNA vaccine (much more so than after his initial 2 AZ)- he was concerned, challenged his doctor and told it was all fine and he should have it and lo and behold the very issues he was concerned about made him very ill. Too one sided, I want to hear both sides before I make a decision.
I also have concerns about the whole reason/need for boosters.......... not only has the whole vaccination programme had moving goalposts ("we will remove restrictions once the vulnerable have been vaccinated" etc) but I am no longer convinced as the message shifts according to convenience it seems. You are told you need a booster to avoid Omicron because the first doses were not effective enough, yet at the same time you are told the booster is magically effective- yet still restrictions are imposed. Those issues conflict, so which one is correct??????
Until I have a good reason for a booster AND there is properly balanced info on risk/benefit- they can stuff it. After all, due to the emergency indemnity, we cannot sue the manufacturers if it goes wrong, so that last strand of protection has been removed.
Then I read Private Eye's regular column on those benefiting from COVID, and think to myself: "qui bono?"
When I then follow the money, I see too much of a trend that the big Pharmas seem to be making the "boosters" the next cash-cow drug- you know, like statins or the anti-acid drugs before them. Only after a
lot of push back from big pharma was it finally proven that long-term anti-acid drugs were not required if
helicor pyloi infections were dealt with (by a cheap course of antibiotics), and there is well-informed concern about the pointlessness of statins for many of the population (women, men who have not had a heart attack) albeit those concerns are being pushed back in the same way they were with anti-acids.
Now we have the cycle of potentially 6-monthly (or even 3-monthly???) boosters. That is a typical predictable cash-cow product for pharma- and if you look at the financial model of big pharma, those are the things they like. They would far prefer an expensive but limited effectiveness drug given on a regular basis in the rich west than a truly live-saving drug which saves lives in the developing world (just look at the lack of vaccines for third world diseases like TB and malaria, or the dearth of new antibiotics).
And are these really "vaccines" in the usual sense?
Most vaccines are given at a young age (DTP, MMR) and then may be boosted during school or other times (e.g. tetanus). Boosters are required when a disease is not being faced regularly by the immune system so not "practicing" using the defences the vaccine trained it in.
Flu vaccine is different in that with the flu virus mutating constantly, the vaccine has to be re-jigged every year to match the predicted strain of flu. That is why there are annual jabs- it's not about immunity wearing off rather it's about antigenic drift or shift of the virus.
The COVID boosters are different...... the vaccine has not changed (unlike the flu situation) but there suddenly/conveniently seems a very pessimistic view of level of original protection- but not booster- and a focus on antibodies not immune system memory cells.
Qui bono?!
Enough is enough. I had the initial set of 2 jabs (AZ) and no more.
I am not an "anti-vaxer" although no doubt the media would paint me as one. I have just decided that this one smells and remain unconvinced about the need for boosters....... especially when the levels of people in hospital needing oxygen/ventilation for COVID (the key issue) are no higher than in the summer.
Finally- the booster delivery programme is killing off the recovery of GP services and making the backlog of non-COVID illnesses even worse. If a govt (or rather the moneyed interests who lobby them) wanted to soften the public up for a programme of reform of the NHS, they couldn't have picked a better strategy.........
TPO