Experts say that Britain and the US could soon be overvaccinating citizens in their fight against Covid.
Israeli officials announced plans to continue giving booster jabs. The UK and the US will soon be under pressure to do so, even though neither country has yet indicated that it is in their plans.
However, scientists claim that distributing vaccines once every three to four months is not feasible. Omicron could even make the task more difficult. Omicron has been argued by some to speed up the process and reduce hospitalisations.
Before approving plans to give fourth jabs, they demanded additional data about the differences in dosing between boosters. Some experts argue that the additional jabs do not have any benefits as their main purpose, which is to prevent hospitalisations and deaths, has barely diminished over the past year.
Professor Ian Jones of the University of Reading was a virologist who said that Omicron is a natural vaccine.
Omicron can be transmitted but is less dangerous than others, so it may boost immunity and not cause serious illness. There are some studies that suggest that Omicron vaccinations alone do not provide the best protection against infection.
According to Professor Jones, future variants “may be even milder” and that healthy adults may no longer need top-up jabs. He suggested that annual boosters would be more feasible for those who are vulnerable, rather than giving jabs once a month.
Warwick University’s Professor Lawrence Young is a virologist who insists vaccines need to protect against severe illnesses for longer than they prevent getting sick or infected. This suggests that the next few years will see a booster program for elderly and those most vulnerable.
Professor Simon Clarke of the University of Reading is a microbiologist who admitted that he couldn’t imagine ministers giving Covid vaccinations once every three months. He stated that although immunity begins to decline after about two and a half months, it doesn’t necessarily mean the vaccine is less effective.
MailOnline was told by he that there is no way to determine the effectiveness of boosters over the long term. He said, however, that it would be best to just wait and watch. “We cannot get long-term data, it’s impossible to predict the future. “We don’t know which strategy works best,” he stated.
Others have suggested that multiple Covid outbreaks each year could require boosters once every four to six weeks, which is what they called a “daunting prospect”.
This graph displays the top 10 countries that have administered the most vaccine boosters or doses to their population. The graph illustrates how many nations now give more than one dose per person. While the UK ranks in the middle of the 20 top performers, the US is not even close to making the cut.
Although only mid-performer for the top 20 countries in vaccine doses/100 people, the UK is an excellent performer when it compares nations like Australia, Canada and Israel.
However, even though Omicron is less resistant to vaccines than other diseases such as malaria and encephalitis, the effectiveness of these vaccinations does not make them redundant.
Based on real-world evidence, the effectiveness levels of the booster vaccine in stopping patients from getting symptoms have dropped to 40% within 10 weeks.
Two jabs can still dramatically reduce the chance of death and hospitalisation, even for Omicron. This is because the body’s immune system has some capacity to fight off viruses even after a decline in immunity. Experts insist that a third dose of Omicron will increase this protection.
This means that a fourth dose might not be needed for all of the UK. Ministers could only advise to give extra doses to elderly or immunocompromised patients in the next months.
Experts warn against giving another round of vaccinations too quickly.
A government adviser warned that it would prove impossible to “defeat” Covid using vaccines. This is because everyone needs a boost every three months. This would mean that the NHS could give the equivalent of 50million vaccines each 90 days or 550,000 per day.
This would put the cost of an annual vaccination drive in the region of £4billion, based on one jab being priced at around £20 per dose — similar to Pfizer.
But ministers may sign off on plans to dish out universal Covid jabs — which experts hope will offer better protection and hold up against variants that emerge in the future — but they aren’t expected for another 18 months, England chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty told MPs earlier this month.
Although vaccine makers quietly work on polyvalent Covid jabs, they all are in the early stages of development and still far from clinical trials.
Israel has already approved the use of fourth doses of Covid vaccines to vulnerable people, such as those with weakened immune systems, over fears that their immunity may already be fading .
The US currently has no plans for additional boosters. Health officials say more information is required on potential protection improvements offered by a fourth dose.
Last week, Dr Anthony Fauci (director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) stated that it was premature to talk about a fourth dose.
“One thing that we are going to be closely following is how durable the protection will be after the third dosage of an mRNA vaccin,” he stated.
The protection may be longer lasting than that of the two-dose, non boosted group. In this case, we could go quite a long time without needing a fourth dose.
“So, I think it’s premature for the US to be discussing a fourth dosage.
UK experts also caution against fourth jabs. They warn that further data on long-term protection from boosters is necessary.
Experts on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, (JCVI), are reviewing plans for a second round of boosters.
Professor Anthony Harnden is the deputy chair of JCVI. He stated that they need more data. Our situation is different from Israel’s and we require more information on the waning immunity of vaccine effectiveness to prevent hospitalisation.
Professor Jones explained that although the immune response to vaccines has waned, it was not known if there will be a decline in the boost response.
Israel is already distributing fourth doses Covid vaccines for vulnerable populations. Many consider Israel a leader in vaccination policy, with the UK following many of its lead policies.
After an initial slow start, the Covid booster program has been accelerated. According to recent data, over 30million people were boosted. However it is unknown if there are any more boosters in the future.
MailOnline was also informed by him that he did not believe it feasible to offer a booster for immunity every day.
He stated that boosting every 10 to 20 weeks or whenever a new variant is on the rise can’t be done. Therefore, he suggested that there should be a system of grading new variants in order to make sure we are able to act effectively and appropriately.
Professor Jones stated that annual boosters of immune system for those who are vulnerable would be more sensible in the months between December and February when the winter peak illness season (December to February) is upon us.
Professor Jones stated that all adults could have one if Omicron continued to grow.
He said that Omicron could be an already attenuated strain on the way to endemicity. In such cases, later versions might have milder effects and the need for vaccines for otherwise healthy adults may recede.
‘You have to remember that making you very sick is no good to the virus at all, all it “wants” is to transmit, so virus evolution will tend towards a less severe strain which you will pass around as you will struggle on with work etc much as we do for common colds.’
Professor Jones stated that Omicron was essentially a natural vaccine and described the ultra-infectious variety as a natural vaccine.
According to him, while all Covid varieties boost immunity, Omicron is highly transmissible but milder and helps boost immunity.
MailOnline was told by he that if you infected with any version of the virus, your immunity will be increased. We like that it is mild because we are able to obtain immunity without risk, or at a lower level.
He warned, however, against throwing ‘chickenpox’ parties in which people try to get Omicron. We need to be careful of people who might become severely ill by the virus.
“You need to take care not to make it too broad, such as to include chickenpox parties. There will always be vulnerable minorities and encouraging them to infect others puts them at great risk,” he stated.
Hopes of Omicron ushering in the end of the pandemic stage of Covid were sparked by a South African study into Covid death rates in the nation’s Omicron wave. This study revealed that deaths were less than half of those experienced during previous surges.
Researchers examined records of 450 patients hospitalised in the City of Tshwane, in the ‘ground zero province of Gauteng, since the extremely-transmissible variant took off in the country. They had a survival rate of nearly four times that of the nearly 4,000 people who were hospitalized earlier in the pandemic.
The virus claimed the lives of just 4.5 Percent of the patients admitted to hospital with Covid within the past month. This is a comparison to the 21.3 percent that was recorded in the previous pandemic.
Researchers from South Africa’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases, (NICD), and University of Pretoria conducted the study. They found that there was a decrease in deaths, hospitalisations, and cases compared with previous waves.
The team suggested that Omicron may be the ‘harbinger of death’ of the worst pandemic days and might usher in the endemic phase of the virus’s spread in an article published in the International Journal of Infectious Disorders.
Omicron was claimed by many commentators to be a natural vaccination that would make the virus more common in the human population.
One of these was a health official for the Indian state of Maharashtra, Dr Pradeep Awate who told the Press Trust of India, that although Omicron was spreading faster than Delta, there had been few hospitalisations.
He said that Omicron would act as a natural vaccine and could help Covid move towards the endemic stage if this occurs.
Clarke, however Omicron is not a “natural vaccine”, as it has been cautioned.
‘The immunity we’ve had from other variants doesn’t protect all that well against Omicron, so there is no reason to think it works in the other direction,’ he said.
This is despite the fact that a study done by Africa Health Research Institute shows that antibodies in blood samples taken from people who have been infected with micron were 4.4 times higher when they are exposed to the Delta variant of the virus.
Contrary to this, other research on cross-variant immunity revealed that antibodies produced in response to Delta did not react well to Omicron.
Dr Clarke added that just because Omicron was milder did not mean it, or other Covid variants, would remain so, adding: ‘The idea that viral evolution is a one-way street to the common cold is absolute bull****.’
Clarke stressed the importance of data to determine if boosters are needed more often and if they should be used more frequently.
He said there will be an ‘optimum’ gap between doses but ‘we just don’t know what it is yet’, adding that it ‘won’t be good’ if jabs are done too far apart or close together.
Clarke advised that there are no general projections on the future of Covid boosters. He also pointed out how, even though an Omicron jab is in development, they might not be ready in time.
But he said that boosters used to increase immunity may be preferred as the Government does not want to place restrictions or minimize disruption.
He said that the vaccination of all people will reduce transmission. Although it doesn’t completely eliminate it, it will make it less common.
“A large number of people are suffering from more serious illnesses than they have the sniffles or who cannot go to work because of their illness, this can lead to massive disruption to the public service and economic slowdown.”
Professor Young stated that, despite data suggesting a decrease in Omicron-infection booster effectiveness, there was no reason to doubt the long term outlook for protection against severe diseases.
He stated that preliminary data suggest Omicron vaccine effectiveness drops to between 15% and 25% after 10 weeks.
“So, older people who received boosters in September may not have as good protection against symptomatic infections.
“However, there is no evidence that booster jabs can protect against severe diseases and should be effective for at most a few months.”
The hope was that these protections against serious disease would eventually lead to an annual booster vaccination for seniors and those in vulnerable groups. This will protect them from Omicron-related infections over the next few years.
Professor Young also stressed the complexity of immunity, with various segments such as antibodies increasing in the short term after people have been vaccinated. Longer term protection is provided by other parts that are harder to measure like the T-cells.
He said, “The good news is that there have been recent studies that show that vaccinations and natural infections can induce strong and sustained responses to Omicron or other variants.”
“This could be the key to long-term protection without the need for boosters as often as necessary.”
Concerns have been raised about the UK overvaccinating its citizens, while many people around the globe are not vaccinated.
A government advisor on vaccines, Professor Adam Finn previously stated to the BBC that people overvaccinating when there were none in other places was “a bit crazy, it isn’t just inequitable it’s stupid”.
Professor Young also stated that it was more important for other countries to boost vaccine uptake, than offering all Britons another booster. This would prevent the formation of new variants.
Omicron’s first identification and most likely emergence was in Africa.
He stated that virus variants would continue to be created as long as it is possible for the virus to spread, especially in low-vaccination countries.
“This highlights the necessity to manage the pandemic globally as well locally, and that we have every interest in supporting the spread of vaccines around the globe.
“In a world where over 73% have been vaccinated in wealth and middle-income nations, that includes all those who received one, two, or more doses of vaccines. In Africa only 12% have been vaccinated. We need to think about the benefits and luxury of extra booster doses of vaccines.
Jeffrey Shaman is an epidemiologist and modeler of infectious diseases in New York. He has highlighted the importance to address the Covid pandemic globally.
“We might find ourselves in an alternative kind of endemic equilibrium, in which boosting may be required every four-six month and high-quality therapeutics will be needed to reduce severe disease.” These therapies would have to be made available worldwide and evenly. It is an intimidating prospect. It is also psychologically difficult.