HIV Meds To The Rescue

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

It just keeps getting better.

The coming of a supposedly "updated" vaccine, does very little to promote or rebuild trust in big pharma or our government. 

I don't think I am alone in my view point. I agree with the writer, that the industry and our government has created its own problems, though I don't have as much confidence as the writer seems to have, regarding the solution to "their" problem.

Read: America created its own booster problems

With two years of data on COVID vaccines’ safety and efficacy, the case for dosing up has only strengthened, scientifically. But the public’s interest and trust in the shots has fallen off as recommendations have shifted, often chaotically, and the number of necessary shots has ballooned.

Even Americans who lined up for their first doses are now over the idea of rolling up their sleeves again. Abdul-Mutakabbir hears often: “I got the two doses; that’s what you told me I needed to do. I’m not doing anything else.” In Camden County, New Jersey, a team led by Paschal Nwako, the region’s health officer, has “knocked on doors, given out freebies and gift cards, visited people in all areas: grocery stores, shops, restaurants, schools, churches, shows,” he told me. “We have exhausted all the playbooks.” Still, people have refused.

The shifting culture around COVID in the U.S. has undoubtedly played a role. “We don’t have the same sense of desperation that we did in December of 2020,” Maldonado, of Stanford, told me. Americans are eager to put the pandemic behind them. And boosters are a tough sell in a nation that has dispensed with nearly all other COVID-prevention measures, and where political leaders are triumphantly declaring victory. “We start talking about COVID, and people’s eyes glaze over,” says Nathan Chomilo, a pediatrician and health-equity advocate in Minnesota. “The messaging will have to be fundamentally different, even, than last year’s conversation about boosters.”

Read: Don’t wait to get your kid vaccinated

When the vaccines were fresh, the popular narratives were tantalizing: The shots could permanently stop transmission in its tracks. But that was probably never going to pan out, says Luciana Borio, the FDA’s former acting chief scientist. “Everybody that worked in the vaccine space,” she told me, knew that the safeguards against infection “were not going to last. Their voices did not get listened to.” Instead, the more appealing story took root, setting “expectations that could not be sustained.” Disappointment ensued, fracturing public faith; mis- and disinformation seeped into the cracks. And no one, including the nation’s leaders, was able to offer a compelling enough counternarrative to put the matter to rest.

An upgraded shot could be enticing to some pandemic-weary folks. “I know a lot of people, including my family members, who say, ‘If it’s the same vaccine, why would I have to get it?’” Nwako told me. “They want something different.” Chomilo suggested that it may also be wise to stop counting how many shots people have gotten: “I hope no one 15 years from now is saying, I’m on my 15th booster.” But nothing about these new vaccines promises to unify Americans around the why of COVID vaccines. At April’s advisory meeting, Marks said the FDA knew that the U.S.’s current vaccination strategy couldn’t go on forever. “We simply can’t be boosting people as frequently as we are,” he said. And yet, the nation’s leaders now seem keen on okaying another round of original-recipe shots for adults under 50—without emphasizing other tactics to lower transmission rates.

 
I have not had the vaccine. Not any of them. I have been blessed not to have had the virus. I continued working as a 1st responder during the lockdowns. I have cared for many loved ones and friends, that did have the virus. Maybe that is why God kept me well. To provide care for those that did get sick.

I had zero trust or faith in the first roll out of vaccines, there is no way I will willingly take any of the "updated" concoctions.

I don't know if DeSantis will change his mind on mandatory vaccines, and I don't know if my job will continue to put up with my noncompliance, but there is one thing I am absolutely sure of.

They will never stop. Give them an inch and they will take ten miles. None of this is about us. It is all about them.

It is big club. And you are not in it.