BOOSTERS IN THE TIME OF OMICRON - An Update

It's been several months since this post, what has changed?

Almost four months have passed since I wrote the previous article, Boosters in the Time of Omicron - I have questions and I wanted to see what had changed, particular regarding booster recommendations.

What prompted me to write the original article was the emergence of the Omicron variant in December 2021, and whether this rendered a booster vaccine necessary or prudent. Especially considering, as someone who works in the healthcare sector, I knew I would have to get a booster shot in the next few weeks, or risk losing my job. Not something I can afford to do. As it turned out, I ended up testing positive for covid about a month after I posted the previous article (around Valentine’s Day). I was sick for about a week. Mild symptoms over all but I was pretty fatigued for about three days. By day seven I was back to myself again. (Not here to dispense health advice but I went by the FLCCC early treatment protocol, minus the ivermectin because it is very difficult to obtain in Australia thanks to the TGA.)

After I recovered from covid I assumed, based largely on the research I had covered for my previous article, that I would at least not need a booster shot too soon. I jumped on to Google, visiting both the ATAGI and AU department of health websites. The advice at the time was to get your booster and get it as soon as possible. And, it was considered perfectly fine to receive your booster vaccination as soon as you had recovered from covid infection. Or, you could wait up to 4 months. It was my preference to wait the four months given I had just recovered from an infection and thus had received a natural booster called Omicron. In-fact my research had indicated that my natural immunity was superior to a booster shot anyway. (My actual preference was to not have the booster at all.) However, Victoria Health had mandated that all workers receive their booster by the end of March, and my employer was starting to place subtle (well, if you call an email advising that I should book my booster as soon as possible if I wanted to remain employed, subtle) pressure on me to get the injection. So, according to the department of health advice at the time, I could defer a booster shot for four months after a confirmed covid infection. However, I would need a doctor to sign off on a referral if my work required the vaccine by a certain date, which it did.

Well. Could I find a doctor who was willing to do this? Short answer is no. I tried five different GP’s, including my regular GP, and not one was willing to sign the deferral form. One GP even said he agreed with me in principal and that it was probably too soon, (3 weeks post infection at that time) for a booster but he was still not able to sign the form.

I was livid. However in the end, I am not proud to say, I gave in and booked my booster just before the cut off date. However, I opted for Astra Zeneca instead of the mRNA grab bag. I also asked the nurse to aspirate. Unlike my first dose of AZ, which knocked me out for 24 hrs, I had no reaction to the booster shot at all.

What prompted me to write this update was an email that was circulated at my work with updated advice for GP’s regarding boosters post Covid-19 infection. The department of health advice is now to wait three months post infection to obtain a booster, to maximise your immunity!

All people are recommended to defer COVID-19 vaccination for 3 months after a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, to optimise protection for that person.

However, back in January, the advice was to get a booster as soon as your infection cleared. With the health departed emphasising that, “There is no requirement to delay vaccination.”

What is the problem with this? Vaccine zealots will say, well the science has changed, and therefor, so has the advice. I get that. However, does that justify mandating an injection based on science that changes so rapidly? I said it before, recommendations are one thing, mandating a medical procedure based on incomplete data, is another thing entirely. If you read my original post the ATAGI’s recommendations were full of uncertain language including liberal use of the word “may”. However, it seems ATAGI’s recommendations have now actually caught up with the ‘science’ as they are now, at least, recommending an interval of at least 3 months after infection. Even further stating that, “People who were previously vaccinated within 3 months of a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection do not need to repeat any doses.” Which is, if I have to say it, what I was trying to get across to those GP’s previously.

I consider myself lucky, almost dodged a bullet lucky, because I have had no serious side effects from these injections. Nor was my experience of covid very bad either. But was that due to the two doses of AZ I’d already had? Or was it because I am fairly healthy for my age (if technically overweight perhaps), I look after my health and I have no obvious risk factors? The thing is, I will never know for sure. (And neither will those who are even younger and healthier than me, who have also come down with covid recently and parrot the “I’m glad I am triple vaccinated or it ‘could have been worse’” line with the self-awareness of a table lamp.

However, some others I know have not been so lucky. A (distant) relative is in ICU as I write this with severe myocarditis after his booster shot. Several friends I know are unwell, some with strange new illnesses suddenly diagnosed, and one person I know has died suddenly with no explanation. It could all be coincidental, perhaps. However the biggest tragedy is that there seems to be no interest on the part of any western health department in finding out. There are, at least, those in the alternative media who are starting to investigate whether the impact of the vaccines has made things better, or worse.

Things like looking at ‘all cause mortality’, the case fatality rate and comparing the rates of hospitalisations and deaths of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, as well as those in-between, should be our health officials’ top priority. Rather than repeating the line “safe and effective” like a religious mantra. A line which when based on the real world evidence, currently trickling out like water out of a hole in a dam which the censorious social media platforms continue to try to plug, is sounding more and more comical. One hopes that this evidence will eventually seep out anyway, as the truth usually does.