Why giving no Covid booster jabs could become a terrible mistake
THE jabs rollout has been a huge success – but it is far from “job done”.
Even though three quarters of Britain’s adult population are fully vaccinated, the battle against the deadly disease is entering a new stage.
When the programme began in December 2020, scientists warned that the effectiveness of the vaccines might weaken over time.
There was simply no way to know until they had been put into the arms of the population.
Unfortunately, those fears proved to be correct.
New research suggests that immunity against Covid-19 infection and disease is dropping some time between four to six months after people have been inoculated.
The ZOE Covid study in Britain suggests that after five to six months, Pfizer’s effectiveness at preventing infection in the double-jabbed falls from 88 per cent to 74 per cent.
With the AstraZeneca vaccine, it drops from 77 per cent to 67 per cent after four to five months.
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There is a way to top up immunity — give people a third dose.
So, you might expect the Government to be gearing up for the booster jabs that were announced almost two months ago.
At the start of July the Health Secretary Sajid Javid said they were working towards delivering these top- up vaccinations in September.
The plan was to give them to everyone aged over 50 and many elderly people are expecting to receive them with their flu jabs.
But the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is yet to make an announcement on offering third doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Our understanding is that they intend to provide them only to people with severely weakened immune systems.
We hear that they don’t think extra doses are necessary for the elderly.
This could prove to be a terrible misstep.
It would make sense to also offer a third jab to the over-80s because they were the first to receive one and, therefore, their level of protection is most likely to have waned.
The immune systems of older age groups are naturally weaker and they are more vulnerable to the severe effects of coronavirus.
It would be unwise to wait and see what damage is done by the weakening antibodies in older people.
Rolling out the booster programme takes time and the extra immunity would only kick in two weeks after any jabs have been administered.
Initial evidence from Israel, where a third jab has been given seven months after the second, shows the protection strengthened again and it reduced hospitalisations.
The United States and France have both announced booster programmes for older age groups.
So, why are we heading in the opposite direction?
The World Health Organisation is opposed to booster jabs because it believes these extra doses should be shared with countries where vaccines are in short supply.
The argument is that nobody is protected until we are all protected.
But variants can still develop here if our population is not well protected and a better option is to boost vaccine production as much as possible.
VERY SECRETIVE
The Government has bought enough vaccines for a booster rollout and to inoculate teenagers.
But we don’t know when those jabs will arrive and they are very secretive about current stock levels.
If they are limited, priority should be given to people with severely weakened immune systems and the over-80s rather than focusing on schoolchildren, for whom the risk of death or hospitalisation remains very low.
Protecting the elderly will protect the NHS by reducing hospital admissions — and therefore prevent another lockdown. It is hard to predict where this pandemic will go next. But on average, around 100 people are dying as a result of Covid every day and 6,000 people are in hospital in England with the disease this week.
That’s the highest level in more than five months. This is likely to climb when children return to school, students head off to university and the colder weather drives people inside.
There is no need to panic, though.
NO NEED TO PANIC
We should be wary about reports that the effectiveness of the vaccines could drop to as low as 50 per cent by Christmas.
Those longer-term predictions, extrapolated from current data, cannot be relied upon.
There is no reason to assume that the rate of decline is going to be constant.
It could stabilise or drop further.
There is no need for most of the double-jabbed to be concerned, because the vaccine is still proving to be highly effective at preventing serious disease.
It isn’t necessary to offer a third dose to someone like myself at the moment.
I am in my late 40s and had my second jab near the end of June, so I am well protected.
We need to keep an eye on the levels of immunity in vaccinated people and an antibody testing programme has now begun in the UK.
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But we shouldn’t wait until those results come back.
It is time to get on the front foot and offer boosters to Britain.
