The COVID pandemic is over, but the debate and the resentment over the vaccine mandates will continue to fester for years. How many people lost their jobs because they decided not to get vaccinated? We were told that getting the shot would prevent infection; get the shot and take off the mask. The latter part was virtually verbatim by Joe Biden, a COVID Petri dish right now. His wife, Jill, also got it again.
What’s clear is that the vaccine prevents severe illness and death, but it does not prevent infection. That is not abnormal; the seasonal flu vaccine is the same story, albeit with much less efficacy. We have a new booster tweaked to accommodate the rising Omicron variants. The problem is that the Federal Food and Drug Administration will sign off on usage before human trials are completed (via NY Post):
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve new COVID-19 booster shots this week — before the vaccines are tested on humans, according to a new report by the Wall Street Journal.
The new boosters are similar to the COVID vaccines currently available in the US with minor modifications that protect recipients from the latest version of the Omicron variant.
Instead of waiting on data from testing in humans, the agency will use data from trials in mice — as well as the real world evidence of the safety of currently available COVID vaccines and test results from earlier iterations of boosters targeting older strains to evaluate the newest boosters, FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said.
“Real world evidence from the current mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, which have been administered to millions of individuals, show us that the vaccines are safe,” Califf said on Twitter. “As we know from prior experience, strain changes can be made without affecting safety.”
He added that modifying existing vaccines to include protection against different viral strains doesn’t require a change in ingredient and is a common practice the FDA does with flu vaccines.
Is this prudent? For all the discussions about increasing vaccination rates, this development offers yet another reason for people to be hesitant. The experts got the messaging on the vaccines wrong. The pharmaceutical companies got legal immunity from the side effects. It’s the wild west out there. And circling back to the experts, when will we yank Dr. Deborah Brix back onto the Hill to testify how she knew from the get-go that the vaccine wouldn’t guard against infection?
I’ve had COVID. I got the vaccine, and I got boosted—and now I’m wondering if my ears will fall off in ten years.