The World Health Organization is urging nations to pause in administering booster shots for the COVID-19 vaccine until poorer nations are able to vaccinate their most vulnerable populations.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference on Thursday, “I will not stay silent when companies and countries that control the global supply of vaccines think the world’s poor should be satisfied with leftovers,” he told reporters. “Because manufacturers have prioritized or been legally obliged to fulfill bilateral deals with rich countries willing to pay top dollar, low-income countries have been deprived of the tools to protect their people.”
Tedros had previously called for a moratorium on boosters through the end of September. But wealthy countries — including Britain, Denmark, France, Greece, Germany, and Spain — have begun or are considering plans to offer third shots of two-dose vaccines to their vulnerable people such as the elderly or those with compromised immune systems.
Israel has been providing third doses to a wide swath of people who already received a full two-dose regimen months earlier. And last month, United States health officials recommended that all Americans get boosters to shore up their protection amid evidence that the vaccines’ effectiveness is falling. WHO officials insist the scientific justification for boosters remains unclear.
For once, the WHO appears to be right. More evidence for the rarity of breakthrough infections for those fully vaccinated comes from a Yale University study released on Thursday.
Yale researchers looking into nearly 1,000 cases of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between March 23 and July 1 of this year found 54 were fully vaccinated, and 14 had severe or critical illness (almost half had no symptoms and went to the hospital for an unrelated condition).
The median age among the group of 14 was 80.5, and 12 of them had heart disease. Other comorbidities among them included excess weight, diabetes and lung disease. Three of the patients died.
The WHO just doesn’t understand the politics of COVID. If you are fully vaccinated, your chances of contracting a serious case of COVID-19 — even if you’re old and sick — are incredibly small. But that fact just doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s being ignored so that the COVID narrative can continue unimpeded by facts.
And the narrative demands masks and other useless pandemic measures to show the public that the government is doing absolutely, positively, completely, utterly, without a doubt, cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die everything to make sure not one single person — especially teachers — get sick from the coronavirus.
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