Britain didn’t need to roll out Covid booster jabs to the entire population, one of the country’s top virus experts has said, as he backed natural immunity as superior to vaccine immunity and said letting the virus circulate is “probably the best way to protect the population”. The Mail has more.
Sir John Bell, who served as Boris Johnson’s testing tsar and an early member of the vaccines taskforce, said he’s “not entirely sure” the nation needed top-up doses, which health chiefs said were vital for all adults to boost protection amid the Omicron wave last winter.
Third jabs have been offered to all over-16s and some at-risk 12 to 15-year-olds. And three rounds of seasonal booster jabs have been dished out to certain groups, including the over-50s, frontline NHS staff and carers.
But the Oxford University scientist said severe illness due to the virus has “essentially disappeared” and the jabs only provide short-term protection against catching Covid.
He called for the Government to “think quite hard” about its vaccination strategy – as letting the virus circulate among healthy people is “probably the best way to protect the population”.
The approach to boosters so far, which sees top-up doses given every three to six months, is estimated to cost between £4-5 billion annually.
Sir John was speaking to MPs on the Science and Technology Committee and Health and Social Care Committee as part of the inquiry into lessons learnt from the Covid pandemic.
Asked what the latest evidence showed on the effectiveness of boosters, Sir John said: “All three of the original vaccines – the AstraZeneca vaccine and the two mRNA vaccines – have been unbelievably effective at eliminating that really dreadful disease that caused so many deaths early on.
“And the durability of those vaccines in preventing those problems has been impressive. I’m not entirely sure that we even needed boosters. We don’t have any clear data on that.”
He added: “That syndrome associated with Covid virus has essentially now disappeared. We’re still getting some deaths but they’re largely in elderly people and people who often have Covid infections alongside other medical problems.”
Sir John noted that boosters are “probably a safe bet for the elderly”. But he suggested that others don’t need the jab.
Latest data suggest the top-up doses offer 67% protection against catching Covid – but this only really lasts for 70 days, he said.
Sir John added: “So, the boosters are not really providing any prolonged protection against transmission – you could have one now and by mid-January you would be getting very little protection against transmission.”
However, natural immunity – protection from a Covid infection rather than vaccine – lowers the risk of catching the virus for around six months, which is a “material amount”, he said.
And some people have protection for up to 10 months.
He told MPs: “I think we do need to think quite hard about our vaccination strategy with boosters now – because it may well be allowing the virus to circulate and transmit in populations not at risk of death is probably the best way to protect the population.”
Might there be another reason Dr. Bell is going cool on the jabs that he is not mentioning?
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Dame Kate Bingham, the former head of the vaccines taskforce, has said the current Covid jabs are “not good enough”. Giving evidence to the same parliamentary inquiry as Dr. Bell, she said: “Our vaccines currently are not good enough. We need to improve the quality of the vaccines, the durability, the ability to stop transmission, the way in which we give vaccines.”
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“By the time you read this, the $110 billion behemoth may be a smoking ruin – the biggest casualty yet of ‘Go woke, go broke’.”
Now that would put a smile on my face.
Anyway, congratulations on all you have done Toby. Even if you haven’t helped to kill them they are certainly severely wounded. Let this be a warning to others.
Well done and thank you.
I’ve taken steps to remove paypal from my financial life.
They were already stepping on civil liberties, but their threat to steal customers’ cash because they offended paypal in some unspecified manner is just too much.
Am I . . . Spartacus?!?
Looks like paypal are running scared….
https://summit.news/2022/10/13/paypal-appears-to-be-desperately-offering-bribes-of-15-to-stop-droves-of-people-cancelling-accounts/
Expose have just released the same news.
Wonderful.
Turned out I hadn’t used Paypal for ages anyway. Should have cancelled it years ago.
“Dan Schulman, the president and CEO of PayPal, gave an interview earlier this year entitled: ‘The thing that separates good companies from great ones: trust.’”
No it isn’t, it’s reputation – ask Jeremy Ratner. Reputation keeps existing customers, attracts others by recommendation, and keeps and attracts investors.
Getting a reputation for not being a reliable provider of a service which can be withdrawn instantly for spurious and subjective reasons will neither keep nor attract customers.
Spending shareholders’ money on ideology that loses customers, reduces shareholder value will neither keep nor attract investors as the pompous Mr Schulman has now found out.
This also shows the best company/market regulator is not Government nor bureaucracies, but the consumer.
I love the title of this article, I certainly don’t think it’s ‘too vainglorious’, and at the same time all of us who closed our PayPal accounts in protest can share in taking the credit. (I had to get a password reminder before I could close my account, which I had rarely ever used.)
In the Spectator article Toby Young said: “On the one hand, PayPal’s demise would send a message to the financial services sector that trying to police your customers’ speech is a terrible idea. But on the other, lots of small depositors would lose their money.”
I think small depositors should withdraw their money from their PayPal accounts before they lose it. It’s not Toby Young’s fault that PayPal cannot be trusted.
Not a penny left in mine.
It was amazing to me, when in the process of shutting down my PayPal account at just how many standing payments I’d set up went via PayPal! Even The Spectator…
I look forward to seeing Paypal’s scalp dangling from your belt, Toby.
I have a grand total of 50p in my PayPal account, and rarely use it.
Am I more of an embuggerance to them if I keep this account open?
I don’t think PayPal would notice that you have only 50p in your account, but they have definitely noticed how many people have closed their accounts since Paypal started to attack people’s freedom in the last few weeks.
Count me sceptical. They are far too entrenched now in the online shopping world and without real competition there- merchants and customers just love its ease of use and reach.
MasterCard folded its competitive effort because of that, not that they’d been more trustworthy.
I love your line on whether they’ll now fine themselves for that misinformation…
You may well be correct JB but they will have had a good kicking.
Cancelled my 25 year old PayPal account after they cancelled Toby and others. Hope they go under if they don’t learn their lesson.
I find it really upsetting that I can only cancel my PayPal account once …. and I’ve done it.
I’m consoling myself by googling “boycott PayPal” several times a day
Surely the AUP breaches human rights and in the EU/UK would be illegal and hence null and void. Making themselves judge, jury and executioner even for goings most of us disagree with and are criminal, e.g. money laundering or fraud means that they are subjecting people to arbitrary justice. Actually just looked article 12 UNDOHR. no one shall be subject to arbitrary interference…?
The Daily Sceptic isn’t the only journalism and “skeptic” site that’s been de-platformed or demonetized by PayPal. The conservative investigative journalism site UncoverDC.com also had this happen to them …. almost three years ago! PayPal or Twitter have never un-suspended this site and its founder, Tracy Beanz.
Apparently I’m the only journalist who thought to do a story on this. In my recent Substack dispatch, I interview Tracy Beanz, who talks about some of the ‘workarounds” she employed to get around this brazen censorship.
Her site is also called a “Covid conspiracy” site. This piece of disinformation is of interest to me as I have written many of the Covid stories UncoverDC.com published. Nobody else would publish many of these stories. And I can’t think of a sentence I would change in any of them.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/shes-still-standing
Hats off to you and Tracy Bill. Not many of your type remaining.
I sent 2 mails to PayPal’s CEO & to corporate affairs asking clear questions about their policies & impact for me as an account holder. Response? NOTHING. The arrogance of these Bit Tech companies is breathtaking.
So I closed my account directly. In the process I applied another Daily Sceptic commenter’s advice to “..select the option to have them delete all your data too then you can leave a comment.”
My departing comment was this:
“I’m thoroughly disgusted by PayPal’s anti-free speech policy. Why would you use a financial service provider which can block your account at any time without providing any reasons, and then steal $2500- from you as a “fine” for your supposed transgression. My decision has been confirmed by ZERO response to my several emails to PayPal asking them if there was a reasonable explanation for recent actions. So much for customer service. Not to mention transparency. From now on, I shall be telling everyone I know to close their PayPal account.“