Republican governor recommends fourth vaccine dose

Republican governor recommends fourth vaccine dose
Delta variant: different from SARS-CoV2, perhaps, but symptoms like the common cold. CDC/LU Staff mage

Hot Air reports that West Virginia’s governor — a Republican — has said it’s time for a fourth vaccine dose, to reduce the transmission and severity of COVID.

It notes that Gov. Jim Justice has “consistently bucked populist orthodoxy in his state about the value of vaccines….he’s … telling his voters things they don’t want to hear. Today he told them to get ready for dose number four, at least if they’re 50 or over or an essential worker. Watch two minutes.”

The Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, argues the additional vaccination is worth it, citing preliminary data that shows a fivefold boost in antibodies over the third dose:

Bennett, in a statement, said the preliminary results indicated “a very high likelihood that the fourth dose will protect vaccinated people to a great degree against infection to some degree and against severe symptoms.”…

“The fourth shot acted just like the first and second shots,” said Sheba spokesperson Steve Walz. “A few people had low fevers, a few had sore arms but nothing more than that.”

On Monday, a week after the boosters were administered, researchers began testing each person’s level of coronavirus antibodies and found the average fivefold jump. “It’s working,” Walz said. “It seems the fourth vaccine is just as effective.”

The Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, has already gotten his fourth dose.

“But to what end?,” asks Hot Air. “It’s possible that someone who’s double-boosted will be less likely to get infected, but (a) that protection will be temporary since antibodies inevitably decline and (b) Omicron may be sufficiently distinct from the original Wuhan strain on which the vaccines are based that it’s still capable of infecting the quadruple-vaccinated. Plenty of Americans who’ve had three doses have been infected. It’s hard to believe a fourth dose would provide much extra protection beyond a few weeks or months, when antibody levels would begin to fall off again. ‘The endless chasing of boosters in order to increase antibodies and increase marginal relative protection but modest absolute benefit is a waste of resources,’ said one expert at Johns Hopkins. It’d be one thing if a fourth dose turned out to provide a meaningful upgrade in defenses against severe disease, but does it?”

LU Staff

LU Staff

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