Posted on 03/28/2023 6:07:34 PM PDT by lightman
Most people don’t need an additional COVID-19 vaccine booster, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in an update on March 28.
People designated as high priority, including older adults and people with significant comorbidities such as diabetes or immunocompromising conditions such as having received an organ transplant are being advised by the United Nations organization to get an additional booster six to 12 months after their last dose. The group includes adults over the age of 60.
The medium priority group, including younger, healthier adults who don’t have comorbidities, are still advised to get a primary series and one booster, but the WHO is not recommending additional boosters “given the comparatively low public health returns,” the organization said.
The updated guidance is a change from before, when the WHO recommended additional boosters for the medium priority group, which includes adolescents with comorbidities.
The low-priority group, including healthy children and adolescents, benefit from a vaccine and boosters but “considering the low burden of disease,” WHO is urging countries to take into consideration factors such as cost-effectiveness when vaccinating them.
“The public health impact of vaccinating healthy children and adolescents is comparatively much lower than the established benefits of traditional essential vaccines for children—such as the rotavirus, measles, and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines—and of COVID-19 vaccines for high and medium priority groups,” the WHO said.
The updated guidance reflects how many people have either been vaccinated, have survived COVID-19, or both, Dr. Hanna Nohynek, a WHO official, said in a statement.
“Countries should consider their specific context in deciding whether to continue vaccinating low risk groups, like healthy children and adolescents, while not compromising the routine vaccines that are so crucial for the health and well-being of this age group,” she said.
COVID-19 poses less risk to many people since the Omicron variant and its subvariants displaced Delta in late 2021. Newer subvariants have increasingly evaded the protection from the vaccines and, to a lesser extent, that from COVID-19 recovery, also known as natural immunity. That has prompted some countries to initiate aggressive booster campaigns to try to recapture the previous protection. Others have narrowed or stopped their campaigns.
England, for example, recently ended its booster campaign for people under 50, citing the high levels of population immunity from vaccination and/or natural immunity. Danish authorities have for some time not commended COVID-19 vaccination to healthy people younger than 50.
Christine Stabell Benn, a vaccine expert in Denmark, told The Epoch Times in an email that for children, “it is quite clear the benefit does not clearly exceed the risks,” since children primarily do not experience severe illness after being infected with COVID-19 and since natural immunity provides strong, long-term protection against severe disease.
Benn also noted that there is limited information about the risks of the COVID-19 vaccines, since they’ve only been used for a few years, and that the list of confirmed and potential side effects has been growing, to include heart inflammation, tinnitus, and menstrual irregularities.
“With little if anything to gain, no societal benefit, and potential risks, COVID-19 vaccines should not be used in healthy children, in my opinion,” said Benn, professor and chair at the Bandim Health Project and Danish Institute for Advanced Study. CDC Advises Against Second Updated Booster
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration in the fall of 2022 cleared updated boosters despite no clinical data being available. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) then recommended boosters for virtually all people aged 5 and older, and for babies and toddlers who received Moderna’s vaccine, as soon as two months after their last shot.
While many Americans have opted not to get any boosters, and each successive booster campaign has drawn less support, some people have pushed to be able to get multiple updated boosters.
Addressing such people, the CDC said this week that it recommends against more than one of the new shots, which come from Moderna and Pfizer.
“Can I get more than one updated COVID-19 booster? No,” the CDC says on its website.
“Receiving more than 1 updated boosters is currently not authorized” by U.S. regulators, the agency added.
It’s still not clear when clinical efficacy data will be available for the updated boosters. They contain the Wuhan strain as well as a sublineage of the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants. The companies and U.S. authorities have not returned requests for comment.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 coordinator, said in a recent appearance on WBUR that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is examining data to determine whether high-risk individuals should get a second booster.
“We continue to closely monitor the emerging data in “We continue to closely monitor the emerging data in the United States and globally, and we will base any decision on additional updated boosters upon those data,” an FDA spokesperson told news outlets in a statement.
As of March 22, 73.4 percent of the U.S. population aged 5 and older have received a primary series, according to federal data. Just 17.5 percent have received an updated booster.
Sorry, WHO.
I'm into my seventh decade.
One year since my last Confession.
Two years and one month since my final "vaccination".
The CDC can KMA!
And I was SO looking forward to my monthly Fauci injections.
The whole thing was a lie that reached a perfect release window around the 2020 elections. Big pharmaceutical lobbyists had every politician in their pocket.
The Biomedical-Pharaceutical complex needed a huge trial of mRNA; only way to accomplish that was to make people scared to death NOT to take it; and when that failed, to create a two-tiered “vaxxed vs. unvaxxed” society.
And when that failed, by force.
I am healthy and alive because of my pacemaker. I have mixed feelings on the medical industry. No middle ground though. Either 100% trust after I do my due diligence, or I’d just as soon push em out the plane without a parachute.
Now it’s, “Harriet, I just got my elenth Covid shot last week.”
Dear Father, may we somehow get our money away from these fiends. In Jesus Name I ask, Amen.
And yet we’re still treated nightly to gov’t-sponsored PSAs touting the merits and pleading for compliance (Get the shot!).
The modified limited hangout continues...
Paging every health system in NYS: So why exactly are you STILL forcing healthy employees and patients to wear muzzles...?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.