The COVID vaccine messaging has been a nightmare since the beginning. Democrats said they wouldn’t get vaccinated if Trump told them to… Republicans said they wouldn’t get vaccinated if it wasn’t FDA approved… And the federal government promised that life would get back to normal if we all got poked…only that’s not true since mask mandates are showing up regardless of vaccination status.
Now, there’s talk of boosters.
We can’t even agree that everyone should get vaccinated and there’s pressure to get boosters. What if we don’t? What if everyone who got vaccinated decides they’re not going to get the booster?
After all, the vaccine still isn’t FDA-approved. It’s also not providing the level of protection we were promised considering that there are more and more breakthrough cases.
According to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the FDA, COVID-19 vaccine boosters may start as early as September for the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.
This is problematic since we’re not on the same page for vaccines yet. We can’t seem to agree as a country as to whether we should be vaccinated or what should be done to/for those who refuse to get vaccinated.
Are we supposed to prove that we’ve been vaccinated? Do we need to start wearing ID bracelets or carry around a vaccine passport? We’re not there yet…but we could be in no time.
If we’re going to get boosters, we’re in big trouble. Too many people struggled to get vaccinated. And now, what happens if people decide they don’t want to get the booster? Are they suddenly going to shift from the status of vaccinated to unvaccinated?
The Biden administration has managed to do this to themselves. They caused uncertainty. They sent mixed messages. And they have yet to provide full transparency regarding COVID and the efficacy of the vaccines.
Gottlieb, who joined Pfizer’s board of directors, has explained that the government has enough vaccines to give booster shots to the entire population.
The problem is that we don’t know enough about the vaccines to answer important questions. Is the booster needed regardless of what vaccine was taken? How long does the vaccine last without a booster? How often will boosters be needed? Can a booster be given of one brand when the initial vaccine was from a different brand?
These questions aren’t being answered. And when the press starts to ask the White House, there’s dead air.
Gottlieb has explained that the delta variant is likely only to surge for a few weeks. The problem is that the U.S. is “a big country so this epidemic wave is going to hit different regions at different points in time.”
Does he understand what he’s saying? If the variant is only going to last a few weeks, it will be over by the time boosters are ready to be administered.
It took a significant effort to get millions of Americans vaccinated. It required the use of the military – both Active and Guard. The federal government spent millions to set up mass vaccination sites in major cities around the country. Are we prepared to spend that money all over again to protect against a variant that may be gone in a few weeks?
There are a lot of questions – and until the CDC and the Biden administration start talking, it’s going to lead to people wondering just how effective the vaccines will continue to be. Are we protected? Do we need a booster? Let’s figure things out so that we can truly get back to life as normal. Transparency is the only thing that will get us through this…but that’s not the way that the Dems like to rule.