COVID: How many boosters are enough?

[PurpleRayne89]

If you’re vaccinated with all three jabs. When do you draw the line if we are expected to get a 4th or 5th booster?

When, If ever will you say it’s enough and refuse to be injected again until they develop something more long lasting.

What are you general thoughts on the vaccine?

No arguments, all opinions welcome and will be respected. Let’s discuss this in a mature fashion.

For now I will have whatever we are advised is necessary .

Long term, I think one or twice a year is reasonable. Especially if it will hinder travel plans without.

I stopped at 2. I'm not going to have an mRNA vaccine until there's at least another few years of data on them. I initially said I'd have a different booster if it became available, but the dismissal of side effects (illness, stress, and other vaccinations I've had as an adult have never disturbed my menstrual cycle like this did) and constant coercion and demonisation of those who decline it have been very offputting.

I'm double jabbed.
Haven't had my booster yet, as I haven't had any letter through.
(I know I could probably just book online, but I'm in no mad rush to)
I will get round to having it.
Probably not so much any further ones though as where does it end?

Will have as many boosters as I'm offered

@GreenWhiteViolet

I stopped at 2. I'm not going to have an mRNA vaccine until there's at least another few years of data on them. I initially said I'd have a different booster if it became available, but the dismissal of side effects (illness, stress, and other vaccinations I've had as an adult have never disturbed my menstrual cycle like this did) and constant coercion and demonisation of those who decline it have been very offputting.

Oh dear

I suspect that I'll be offered a fourth jab for next winter and that they'll become an annual event after that, probably combined with the flu jab my employer pays for.

I've got to have four but am having problems even getting my third as I'm housebound & the doctor's think I'm low priority before that reason.

@BlueLines81

I’ve had none, and I won’t be having any. My reasoning is:

I caught covid very early on, felt a bit grim for a few days but nothing paracetamol and Netflix couldn’t fix. So I was ‘lucky’ in that I wasn’t living with the fear of what might happen if I got it. I’ve had far worse colds.

Over the next 8 months or so, I knew quite a few people who got covid, a mixture of ages and health status. And like me, no one became anything even approaching seriously ill. So this didn’t tally with the scaremongering in the media to me. My DM is in local government and she has full council meetings every month where covid stats are discussed. The excess deaths in my county since the pandemic began are the grand total of zero, as stated in official local monthly government meetings. Yet that doesn’t tie in with the stats I see when I look for that information myself online. So to me, that’s evidence that the danger has been massively embellished to put it politely.

When the vaccines first became available for people of my age group, I felt quietly confident that it was unnecessary for me to have it in terms of my own risk. People I knew that were getting the vaccine often felt really quite ill afterwards, for a week or so, about the same as when I had covid. And of course since then there have been thousands of serious vaccine injuries reported to yellow card and VAERS, people my age or younger who were at very little risk from covid, then having life changing after effects from the vaccine.

But of course there’s the greater good argument, protecting other people etc. I think as time has gone on, that’s also been pretty well rubbished, there are articles in the BMJ stating that the vaccines make no difference to transmission, or a very negligible amount. So that doesn’t really stand up either.

I then caught covid a second time in September last year, again a week of lying around watching Netflix and I was fine again. I am fit and active, 40 years old with a healthy BMI. Fun fact here, if you’re triple jabbed and overweight and get covid, you’re still far more likely (80%) to be hospitalised from covid than someone who is of a healthy BMI, regardless of their vaccination status.

So I have no reason to think if I get covid a third time I will be hospitalised or die from it. Ah yes but what if there’s another variant, I hear you say. Well if there is, previous vaccines aren’t going to help you much against futuristic variants, as a doctor friend put it ‘that’s now how vaccines work’.

Add to that that I’m a natural hermit anyway, and I’m either outside with my horse or in my house with my kids, so I don’t see myself as posing a huge risk to anyone.

It’s annoying not being able to travel, but I’m happy to accept that and quietly carry on with my life.

That's an awful lot of misinformation for one post.

Where’s the vaccine for what I have now? Worse than covid. If I’ve got to get vaccinated then so be it, but it all seems a bit to me.

@user1471447863

The bit i don't like is when thy cut your arm off, pour the half gallon of vaccine into it then sew your arm back on. The last time they sewed it on squint so every time i go to scratch my nose i poke myself in the eye instead

Oh wait - my mistake, it's a near painless little jag in the arm that greatly reduces my likelihood of becoming seriously ill or dying. Yeah i can put up with that once or twice a year. And if the work on alternative delivery methods (patches, tablets, nasal sprays etc) is a success then even better.

This is incredibly rude and condescending to the people who experienced distressing side effects especially if they ended up with covid anyway. Neither Covid, nor the vaccine are very mysterious anymore. Nearly everyone had had either, or both. If you read the responses, people's feelings are based in their lived experience. Not everyone finds the jab painless and brief, for some the effects are really distressing. Not everyone dies, or even gets seriously ill with covid. And even vaccinated, there is still a chance you will get Covid, get really sick or even die.

BrightYellowDaffodil
At no point did I compare the role or what was in the injections. I compared the frequency which is what the post is about. How often it is given. Nor did I say it was a vaccine. Please read things properly.

@GirlInACountrySong

one a year is acceptable to me

same as the flu jab

This.

I expect to get one every autumn. I will pay for it if necessary.

I pay £15 for a flu jab every autumn anyway 🤷‍♀️.

I'm done with two and won't be bothering with the booster unless it restricts my travel plans. I'm broke anyway so we'll see how things play out globally, there's no rush. I never bothered with the flu jab before.

@PandorasBex which bits are misinformation?

I'd assume it will eventually go to an annual booster, similar to the flu vaccine. Available to all vulnerable people and those who live with them for free. Then open for others at a low cost perhaps. Again like the flu vaccine.

Done on a similar schedule to flu vaccine as it's the winter that can lead to bigger issues with respiratory problems and also when the nhs facilities are at their most stretched.

It may be that the most clinically vulnerable may need one twice a year but that would be a much much smaller group. But I doubt they'd go for that many tbh unless it was really necessary.

I'd be more than happy to have an annual booster, alongside my flu one. I'm cv and teach so in close contact a lot. Currently have covid for the second time. This time round, post vaccines (had 3 but 4th due next month) is very different to last time - still ill but not been rushed to hospital this time round.

@Iggly

I wish people would stop equating covid with the flu. It’s not the flu.

It isn't a flu virus I know. As I said I've had covid twice in 18 months and I've knowingly had flu once in my life. It's also not like a common cold either - common colds don't have me rushed to hospital like covid round 1 did.

However, I do believe that the vaccine schedule it's likely to be based on the flu vaccine schedule with regards to vulnerability and timing.

@SteakExpectations

I’m done with Covid vaccines for now. I’ve had 2 and a booster so far and the booster made me quite poorly for a number of days. I’m currently ill with Omicron which I probably caught from work where everyone is fully vaccinated. I just don’t think the risk of illness from future boosters and the risk of possible long term side effects is worth it compared to the potential risk to someone my age from Covid. It’s also fucked with my menstral cycle which is a very strange side effect IMO for a vaccine to have!

Covid itself messed with mine, more so than the vaccine. Taken a long time and investigations to finally sort it out. Just tested positive again so hoping it won't mess it again!

I'm happy to get jabbed 1x or 2x every year if that meaningfully lowers risk of getting infected or falling seriously ill.

But then, I have gotten almost no side effects from these vaccines besides the slightly sore arm. I would totally understand if people who fall ill for a week with every dose aren't keen on repeating that 1x or 2x every year.

I wouldn't mind once or twice a year but I've been lucky to have minimal side effects with the Pfizer vaccine. My DH was also fine with Pfizer but floored for a week by the Moderna booster. He said he'd only get another if he absolutely had to. We know a few people who have caught Covid in the last couple of months and all have been mild regardless of vaccination status.

I've had the first two and booster but I'm not prepared to have any more for at least 12 months and even then I'm not sure. I have a needle phobia and I'd rather take my chances with Covid than have an injection regularly. Before this I hadn't had a vaccination for 15 years and I certainly won't be having anything more than once a year.

If that means I can't go abroad then so be it, I spoke to DH and he'll support whatever choice I make.

I'm quite happy to see it as an annual booster like the flu jab.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

I've had the first two and booster but I'm not prepared to have any more for at least 12 months and even then I'm not sure. I have a needle phobia and I'd rather take my chances with Covid than have an injection regularly. Before this I hadn't had a vaccination for 15 years and I certainly won't be having anything more than once a year.

If that means I can't go abroad then so be it, I spoke to DH and he'll support whatever choice I make.

I’m genuinely curious about you and all the people who say the same. What is it about the scientific evidence and the emergence of new variants which makes you sure that the arbitrary interval of one year is the optimum for a vaccine? Surely it’s linked to when new variants arrive, how dangerous they are, and when the vaccine for them is available? If you believe vaccines are useful in guarding against serious illness, surely you’d take them when public health officials say they’re needed, not at an interval you, as a lay person, deems acceptable?

I won’t have anymore after the severe reaction to the first that I’m still under consultant care for. Official line is, I should carry on with another make. No exemption for me even though the last 9 months of my life have been hell. It’s not a risk I am willing to take, unofficially my consultant agrees, officially he just has too tell me to take another brand.

I couldn’t go on holiday at the moment if I wanted to with my symptoms, so when people say to me “but what about holidays!” (which they have), after scraping my jaw from the floor that they think i’d risky health again for the sake of a holiday, I remind them of that, and the fact that I haven’t been able to afford a holiday for the past decade anyway.

I had covid two weeks ago and it was nothing to write home about. Certainly not worth what I have been through with the vaccine.