bcredliner:
I agree with your assessment.
FYI, Today, Jan. 11th, 2022, Pfizer announced plans to manufacture 50 - 100 million doses of a new omicron-specific version of its COVID-19 vaccine. They acknowledged that their is a growing concern that their and other pharmaceutical companies’ current vaccine formulations most likely need to be tweaked for the new threat of the Omicron variants and those that will follow.
From what I have read, rapid development and manufacturing changes are possible by the mRNA vaccine technology deployed by Moderna, along with Pfizer, with German partner BioNTech. These companies have said it takes about 90 days from genetic sequencing of a new threat to producing a new lipid nanoparticle vaccine containing the updated mRNA payload, which to me, seems like an incredibly rapid time frame for vaccine development.
Therefore, Pfizer is testing hybrid combinations of vaccines to target multiple coronavirus forms, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of larger doses. Pfizer’s
PR department say that they hope to have the number of doses noted above, of this new formulation of their COVID-19 vaccine, to be available by late March to early April, 2022.
I consider this to be very good news and will be one of the first in line to receive this latest version of fourth booster shot. We all now know that our immunity to the constantly evolving COVID-19 virus, whether developing antibodies from being vaccinated or being naturally infected, unfortunately wanes over time. So, while there is no guarantee that receiving this booster will prevent one from catching the virus, similar to having received three vaccination shots so far, I do think and hope that it will continue to make me less susceptible to either catching COVID-19. Or, if I do catch the virus, my symptoms will be relatively minor and short lasting.
I speculate and fully anticipate that COVID-19 will now most likely never go away, but will just continue to mutate producing new variants that may possibly be more transmissible and/or more deadly than earlier variants. It now appears that the major pharmaceutical companies will just continue to modify their vaccines in response to the evolving mutations of the virus for quite some time. I would not be surprised if those of us who want to, will be offered and will elect to receive booster shots for the virus every 6-9 months or annually, similar to the regular influenza vaccinations, for many years to come….