Booster jabs distributed in England for a pre-Christmas vaccination push are to be thrown away because of a lack of demand a leaked NHS memo reveals. It is not known exactly how many vaccines will be discarded but it is likely to be “hundreds of thousands".
The memo, sent from NHS England’s vaccination team to officials managing the 3,000 vaccination sites around the country, said some stocks would reach their expiry dates without being used. It urges them to try to use them up as soon as possible before they have to be thrown away.
Prof Martin Marshall, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “Whilst everything will be done to keep vaccine wastage to a minimum, vaccines do have an expiry date, and if they are unused after this date or can no longer be stored in the correct conditions, they need to be destroyed.”
Dramatic drop in daily take up
Government figures on the booster rollout show that the number of people across the UK receiving their booster has fallen recently from 968,665 on 21 December to 111,849 on 13 January. It is now reported the average daily booster take up to be less than 100,000 and nearly 69% of all adults in the UK are estimated to have received either a booster or third dose of vaccine, meaning just under a third have yet to have the jab. Take-up remains lower among young adults, with just 44% of all 18 to 39-year-olds thought to have received a booster or third dose.
Effectiveness update
Meanwhile, a new report from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has provided updated figures on the effectiveness of booster jabs against Omicron. The report suggests the jabs may offer slightly better protection against severe outcomes than suggested by early data, revealing a third dose reduces the risk of hospitalisation by 92% two to four weeks later, although after 10 weeks or more the figure is lower at 83%.
“There is further data showing that effectiveness against symptomatic disease is significantly lower compared to the Delta variant, and wanes more quickly,” the report adds. While the level of protection against Omicron is about 65-75% two to four weeks after the jab, falling to about 40-50% protection from 10 or more weeks after the booster.
Conclusion
The Covid-19 jabs need to protect and continue to protect. Since the Covid-19 jabs protection decreases over time, it can make us even less protected. That’s not great when we live each day with a virus.
Not everyone can or will have 100% immunity to start with, particularly the people who fall into the category of being immunocompromised, high risk and vulnerable, or anyone with a pre-existing condition, or those who are fighting cancer and who are currently having chemotherapy. Those people will be less protected.
The reality is, if you're happy to take the vaccine, you will still have to continue to be jabbed, because the efficacy and protection decreases over time. With each passing day, we are being more exposed to the virus again. While people were initially happy to be double jabbed, they are less than happy to continue to be jabbed, which is why there is a falling demand for the booster.
Moving forward, and with precautionary measures being scrapped by the UK Government on 19th Jan, it remains to be seen how they will choose to handle the vaccine situation. It could be that goes underground, like most of the issues with Covid-19.
Source: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk https://www.theguardian.com
This can't come as a surprise to anyone really. Countless people have told me they don't want to be a 'pincushion' with jabs every 6 months.
I spoke to someone today, who had the booster just before Christmas and has been off a second week with Covid, having caught it form his wife who caught it from her mother, both of whom had their boosters.
I read today that AZ are developing a long term vaccine and this has to be the direction of research if there can be any confidence in the vaccine programme.
Sadly, this is the problem for many people. Even with the vaccines, you are not guaranteed you won't catch Covid.
I personally haven't heard about the new AZ vaccine, but it makes sense moving forward that if people are to be vaccinated, they need to be more protected, not less.
These formulations don't work well enough for us not to catch Covid or spread Covid, or for the world to rid itself of Covid-19.