The safety and long-term effects of the Pfizer injectable are yet to become apparent. Time will tell. Concerns remain.
When the Pfizer product was released we were told it required two doses. Millions of us accepted that we would need to comply, for differing reasons, although not all of us submitted happily. This was before the mandates and job losses and the two-tiered society the Prime Minister has so dangerously created, that sees New Zealand divided as never before.
The Ministry of Health website asks and answers its own question. How long will we be protected for?
“We don’t yet know how long you’ll be protected but will continue to review data as it becomes available. “
This information was from the website that was “last updated on 2 November 2021”.
On 6 November 2021 Ashley Bloomfield announced, during a health conference in Auckland, that “New Zealanders are likely to be returning to vaccination clinics for a third dose next year, with officials now working on a booster programme.”
So in four days we went from not knowing how long the protection lasted to needing a booster? Well, no. It seems the Ministry of Health is unable to keep up with the play.
Concerns over waning immunity and SARS-CoV-2 variants have convinced some countries to deploy extra vaccine doses — but it’s not clear to scientists whether most people need them.
[…] Ewen Callaway reported, “But scientists say that the case for COVID-19 vaccine boosters at this point is weak. They might not be necessary for most people, and could divert much-needed doses away from others. On 4 August, the World Health Organization called for a moratorium on boosters until at least the end of September. “Wasting resources on boosters for those who are already protected against severe disease does not really make too much sense,” says Laith Jamal Abu-Raddad, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Weill Cornell Medicine—Qatar in Doha. “Down the line, probably, we would need to think of it. But really, we don’t have strong arguments for it right now.”
https://www.nature.com
The booster argument is weak? And yet New Zealand is developing the booster programme as we speak.
In September, Chris Hipkins said discussions over using Novavax as a booster dose were “shaping up well for New Zealand and [it] was one of four vaccines with which the Government has a pre-purchase agreement and applications submitted for provisional approval. Janssen and Astra-Zeneca are further along in the process and have provisional approval.”
“Effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine declined from 88% during the first month after full vaccination to 47% after five months,” he said.
In October this year, Carrie Macmillan reported, “The list for those who are immunocompromised and are eligible for a third dose include solid organ transplant recipients and those with conditions that give them an equally reduced ability to fight infections and other diseases. A third dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines may increase protection in this vulnerable population, according to data the FDA evaluated.”
Also in October, Chris Hipkins stated, “We are expecting to be starting booster shots, assuming that’s where the science lands up, this side of Christmas, so this year.”
“The need for a third booster dose of the vaccine will likely become pressing in the coming months, as many who were vaccinated in the early stages of the roll-out, which began with healthcare and border workers in February, face waning immunity.”
He is not talking about those immunocompromised, but workers in general. Will we all have to be subjected to yet another shot so as to re-validate our vaccine passport? You know, the one they haven’t yet developed? The one we won’t be able to go anywhere without. The one that is different for national and international travel – should that opportunity ever arise. The one that is a bridge too far for many. And if, as many are saying, “nah, I’ve done my bit with two, forget a third,” where does that leave their vax status? Are they covered – or not? I suspect they will be relegated to the inferior status of second class citizens, with the associated lack of freedoms and rights, no different from those who have never been vaccinated.
In a study published in The Lancet, October this year, Effectiveness of a third dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 vaccine for preventing severe outcomes in Israel: an observational study, the authors said:
“A standard approach to overcoming waning immunity, also known as secondary vaccine failure, is the administration of an additional vaccine dose—often referred to as a booster dose.” The report went on to say, “Our study suggests that a third vaccine dose is effective in reducing severe COVID-19-related outcomes for patients who have received two vaccine doses at least 5 months ago.”
https://www.thelancet.com
But hang on, the New Zealand health.govt.nz site was updated on the 2nd of November, 2021 and stated that they “didn’t yet know how long you’ll be protected”, while the announcements were being made in New Zealand that from September a third dose, a booster, would be required.
If the Ministry of Health don’t know what is happening sufficiently to update their website to accommodate announcements through September and October, how can the rest of us possibly know what is going on? Will we need a booster or not? Does everyone require one or just those who are vulnerable because of other conditions? Does anybody know?
Given the overwhelming expenditure and ‘inducements’ that have been required to get the vaccination rates up to a percentage that will satisfy the Prime Minister, how does she think the need to front up for a third shot is going to be received?
Are we going to be on an endless booster programme to overcome that secondary vaccine failure noted by the Lancet team?
No one, it seems, really has any idea where we are going with this. There are best-guesses based on a clinical trial; there are speculations and suppositions and estimations; there are percentages thrown around like tennis balls and yet, here we are, facing a third round of enforced compliance after fulfilling the two-dose requirement.
I don’t know why the government wonders why people are protesting and in ever-increasing numbers. They don’t trust the government, they don’t trust the injectable, they don’t like being threatened with the loss of their jobs or having their rights over-ridden and their protests dismissed as insignificant and not representative of the “vast bulk of Kiwis” by an arrogant PM.
Pfizer in May 2021 was forecasting boosters. On May 5, “The New York-based pharmaceutical giant reported Tuesday that it earned $4.9 billion in the first three months of the year and it dramatically raised its profit forecast for all of 2021 thanks to strong demand for its COVID-19 vaccine. The company, along with its German partner BioNTech, anticipate strong revenue from the vaccine and booster shots for the next three years.” All we can know is that Pfizer is laughing all the way to the bank.
Does anyone know what happens after the third booster? A booster booster? Yesterday we learned that WHO has warned that there is a shortage of 1-2 billions of syringes looming for 2022. The NZ Government could very well be painting itself into a corner.