How Many Vaccines Will Be Needed?
Instead of Putting a Full Stop What We Are Witnessing Is a Series of Commas That Is Making This Vaccine-Related Sentence Unnecessarily Long and Cumbersome To Read
It began with a choice. Before you jump the gone it had nothing to do with individual right, as in there was no escape route. The choice was either have a single shot or opt for two shots. Yes, the inference is towards the vaccines.
Coronavirus, COVID-19, Wuhan virus or whatever the world may want to call it has been tormenting the world for two years now, and while there is talk of an endgame, there is no clarity yet as far as the vaccine, and the number of doses is concerned.
When countries around the world began to administer jabs/shots, in late 2020, the options were pretty straightforward. People had to either opt for a single shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or be prepared for twin shots of the vaccines manufactured by the likes of Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, Moderna or AstraZeneca. These were the main pharma companies working on vaccines at a global level. There were indeed other options available, made by companies in other countries like China, Russia, India, Israel etc, but these were essentially local versions of the vaccines, and limited to their respective countries.
In any case the initial vaccines administered was always going to be trial and error. Neither did the pharma companies have enough capability/intent to make adequate trials nor did the health regulators have enough time to delay the clearance. Not to forget the source nation was busy with a cover up exercise while the World Health Organisation (WHO) was alternating with shielding the source nation and playing high school basic science teacher, asking people to wash hands, cover mouth/nose…you get the point.
It was the people around the world that suffered, clueless about the efficacy of the doses they were being administered and also having to deal with the after effects and the many restrictions imposed by their respective governments. This suffering is yet to see an end, even after two years. Instead of putting a full stop what we are witnessing a series of commas that is making this vaccine-related sentence unnecessarily long and cumbersome to read. As regards COVID-19, suffice to say it is no longer confined to a sentence. Multiple books have been written on this not so wanted gift from the virus nation.
As such the initial problems pertaining to the vaccines was related to allocation, shortages, side-effects and the study of their overall impact. Then Covid-19 decided to add to the torture, and emerged variants like alpha, beta, gamma lambda and the more dangerous Delta and Omicron, and it caught everyone completely off-guard.
Thus came the boosters. Many countries advised a third jab, as effective protection against Delta and Omicron, we were told. Initially it was meant for at-risk groups, including health workers and those aged over 70 or with pre-existing conditions and immuno-deficiencies but gradually everyone was advised to take the additional jab.
The restrictions and rules were altered accordingly in a bid to persuade (err force) people to take the third shot. What remained consistent amidst all this is the narrative: that being administered vaccine shots doesn’t ensure complete protection but does protect against serious illness, and that every subsequent jab offers a little more protection than its predecessor.
Even as lockdown fatigue, the related uncertainty and vaccine hesitancy kept getting worse, protests by anti-vaxxers kept increasing, as did incidents of related violence. Some government authorities, in a bid to make more people take jabs, have either enforced or are mulling over compulsory vaccination for everyone over the age of 18. Some countries have put a cap on the already vaccinated, one that pertains to vaccine validity. For instance, the vaccine certificate of people who have had the double dose will be valid for only nine months, a little longer for those with the booster and so on.
Countries like Israel have gone ahead with a second booster, that is a fourth shot of the vaccine— administered to medical workers and people aged 60 and older, making other countries ponder similar moves. Again, the latest data from Israel shows that a fourth dose can provide a slight improvement in protection against infection per se but more protection from a serious case of illness.
Amid this, there have been contrasting theories as regards the number of vaccine shots to be taken. Researchers at Saarland University found that people who have had mix-and-match vaccination showed an immune response stronger and as as such, it is more effective than that of people who have had two shots of the same vaccine. Besides, an official from the European Medicines Agency recently told a media briefing that repeated vaccinations within short intervals would not represent a sustainable long-term strategy. The EU regulators warned that frequent Covid-19 booster shots, once every four months or so, could adversely affect the immune response and eventually weaken it.
If the confusion related to the emergence of new variants at frequent intervals was not enough the powers that be have contributed immensely to the confusion as regards the efficacy of the vaccines, and the number of doses required per se. With each assertion contradicting the other there’s no clarity of purpose whatsoever.
Amid all this confusion companies like Pfizer/BionTech and Moderna are currently developing a newer version of their jab to target the omicron variant which has so far proven more evasive of vaccine protections even as studies point out an omicron-specific booster is not significantly different from the conventional booster.
It is only when we look at the financial matters that things become clear. Recent reports indicate Pfizer has doubled annual sales and profits thanks to its COVID-19 vaccine. The American pharma company has sold $37bn worth of the vaccine last year and expects sales of $32bn this year. While the New-York based drug maker claims it had put “billions of dollars of capital on the line” in the early stages of the pandemic to develop the drug, the numbers have prompted accusations from campaigners of “pandemic profiteering”.
With their being no clarity as regards the efficacy of the vaccines as also the numbers of shots that are actually required it won’t be wrong to expect the financial status of these Big Pharma companies increase many folds in the coming years. From urging people to get vaccinated the appeal of any state to its citizens should henceforth be to get ready for regular doses of the vaccine. Besides, it won’t be a surprise if the virus nation comes up with a new offering in the near future, and this vaccine game gets played on a loop.
The good thing is that a few countries in the European Union are accepting the fact that its citizens have to live with the many variants and never-ending vaccine doses, and as such opening up again. In fact within a month of declaring it was offering a fourth vaccine dose to older adults and other vulnerable citizens the Danish authorities have said they see no reason now to administer a booster dose to children or a fourth shot to anymore residents at risk of severe COVID-19, and the country is considering “winding down” the country’s coronavirus vaccination program in the spring.
That is how it should be. If people are destined to live with a virus (with many variants) and multiple vaccine doses they might do so on their own terms. It is perhaps time for the rest of the world to adopt this back to business as usual option, and do away with lockdown and restrictions altogether.
