I’m also considering waiting until the originally recommended 5 months. Less than that seems excessive. And maybe not ideal if you want maximum efficacy.
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That’s my feeling too. I’ll get the booster at six months.
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It’s interesting how some forumosans are persuaded that five or six months is a better plan than the newly expedited 12 week interval for the booster.
Faced with omicron, the health authorities in New Zealand switched the interval from six months to four months. They think this is better in this situation for maintaining public health.
In Taiwan, the authorities—similarly facing omicron—have shortened the interval from five months to around three months.
What’s the counterargument against these recommendations?
Guy
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I thought the Israeli research pointed towards 5 to 6 months. I’ll try to find it.
Could be that Omicron is forcing a rethink, esp. as the initial vaccine programs in many countries were quite a while ago, and that it’s more spreadable than previous iterations of the virus.
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Yeah, I wouldn’t assume that anything will be handled the same this time around.
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There is also the matter of the expiry dates on the Vaccines that Taiwan currently has. If the elderly don’t want to be Vaccinated, those doses currently held may as well be given to others as Boosters before they expire.
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So I had a look at current recommendations in the US, which are indeed more conservative. If you’re double dosed with Moderna, they recommend a six month interval; for Pfizer-BNT, it’s just been adjusted to a five month interval; and for J&J, it’s two months (indicating the limits of this one-shot vaccine). AZ is not indicated as it was never approved for use in the US.
In contrast, we have joined other countries such as the United Kingdom, Greece, South Korea, Germany and Israel—all are now recommending people to get the booster three months after their second shot.
Source: Pfizer Covid booster shots: CDC shortens waiting period to 5 months
Guy
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I was looking around at some reports from Canada, where they are indeed shortening the interval in some provinces. But some accounts (including from the Canadian province of Newfoundland) indicate that a 22 week interval provides a more robust response and better protection, compared to a 12 week interval. I guess the variable here is that you don’t get whacked badly by this wily virus in the meantime!
Source (from Newfoundland): Longer Interval Between Second Shot and COVID Booster Offers Better Protection: Fitzgerald | VOCM
Guy
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And the Canadian province of Ontario (I promised this is my last post!) has moved to a three month interval (i.e. roughly the same as Taiwan’s new guidelines). Here’s a helpful article published January 3, with some key parts with hyperlinks to follow if forumosans are interested:
“Everything has changed with Omicron, there are new rules of the game,” Juni told CTVNews.ca on Tuesday in a phone interview. “What was still current six weeks ago is obsolete now.”
Juni pointed to recent data from the United Kingdom suggesting that protection against infection from COVID-19 decreases after roughly three months of receiving the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. According to Juni, this data most likely holds for those who received a second dose of Moderna as well. At the end of November, the U.K. government announced that all adults would be eligible to receive their third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine after just three months of receiving their second dose.
Muhajarine pointed to another study from Israel, demonstrating the effectiveness of a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine at reducing the risk of disease-related hospitalization and death. Involved in the study were participants vaccinated after at least five months of receiving their second dose. Israel also recently announced that it would be shortening the amount of time between offering second and third doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to three months, down from five months.
“The data that we are seeing really points to a much shorter interval as the optimum interval to give a third dose,” he said. “I think six months might be the real outside limit of that.”
While residents across the country [i.e. Canada] must contend with booster eligibility requirements based on their province or territory of residence, Muhajarine said he still encourages those who have received their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at least three to five months ago to get the booster dose as quickly as possible.
“We are contending with a variant that is really good at evading vaccine-induced antibody immunity,” he said. “When the third dose…is in place, our immune response gets back up and is able to continue to protect [against] severe disease.”
Source: COVID-19 vaccine booster: How long should you wait? | CTV News
Guy
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Booking a Booster shot is going to be frustrating.
I tried the https://booking.health.gov.tw/ site and it only has clinics, most of which are booked out all week. But I did try one that I knew, and the bloody thing doesn’t like my name, saying its invalid!!!.
I have looked at a couple of Hospitals and they all seem to be booked out for the week also,
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Why am I not surprised?!
Someday they’ll be talking about booster overdoses.
There’s some news somewhere I read that a whacked-out guy takes like 20 Covid self-tests on himself a day. Kind of similar to drug addicts.
I would take a booster every say 2-3 months if I could until I got to about 4 injections total. I think that is the sweet spot for maximum anti-bodies. At that time I would probably reduce it to once every 4-6 months or longer.
This is my completely unfounded guesstimate.
I’m just gonna walk in like I did the first two.
Hopefully that trick will works.
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Let us know how that goes? I like just walking up somewhere. I need to ask other people to help me book and I rather just walk up looking like an innocent foreigner.
So it will just be walk-in by design now. Smart move.
Yeah, a pretty hopeless booking system at present, seems like the CDC opened the gate to boosters but didnt talk too well with the Hospitals and Clinics whos booking systems are suddenly full.
I actually found the NTU Hospital booking site had some vacancies, went through the hoops, but then, as I had never been there before, I had to also complete a Registration form, which is impossible for anyone (citizens included) as one of the required fields is “Nationality” and requires you to select from an EMPTY drop-down list. That ended that, so I will drop the subject until, as seems likely, 1922 gets reopened.
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Due to having lost my voice, I went to a local clinic to get a shot and some oral medication. As soon as I walked in, nurse asked me if I was there for a booster shot or something else. I had no idea that they were allowing booster shots at this point. I was there for other purposes but ask the doctor when I would be eligible for a booster. Quite simply, 3 months after my second vaccination shot, I would be eligible for any of the vaccines that they offered. He suggested that I take Moderna as a booster, due to the fewer side effects. However, I could basically have my choice of whatever vaccine I wanted.
While I do kind of live in the sticks, it seems as though just walking into clinics he said enough to get a booster shot if you really need it and want it. There were many people in front of me who are just there with their yellow cards to get a booster shot. I made an appointment for next week, as that would be exactly 3 months after my second vaccination with AZ.
If you are truly interested in getting a booster shot, it seems to still walk into a clinic is your best bet.
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