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How will Covid Booster shot affect vaccination status with Royal?


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Now that the government is saying that you need a covid booster shot after 8 months of your 2nd dose, how will that affect vaccinated status on cruise lines? 

Any guesses? Will current fully vaccinated people with cruises planned in the end of the year need to get a booster if its been 8 months since last dose before they will be considered fully vaccinated by the cruise lines?

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30 minutes ago, JimnKathy said:

Everything I read (John Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, etc.) indicate they recommend the boosters only for the extremely immuno-compromised at this time. One thing's for certain...we can count on changes to these suggestions on a daily basis.

Not anymore.  Recommendation is now that everyone gets a booster 8 months after their second shot.

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I sure hope that I will be able to continue cruising without getting the booster.  I had pretty bad side effects after my second shot and my brother developed a severe problem after his.   We seem to have a strong genetic response to this vaccine in my family so a booster is not recommended.  The data that the CDC is going on is coming out of Israel which has a high vaccination population.  Israel is finding that after about 8 months the vaccine is down to a 50% efficacy vs the 95% efficacy in the first few months.  This is also being played out in higher hospitalizations of vaccinated people that get covid. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-covid-vaccine-pfizer-effectiveness-infection-40-data-preventing-hospitalizations-88-1.10021477

 

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6 hours ago, JimnKathy said:

Everything I read (John Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, etc.) indicate they recommend the boosters only for the extremely immuno-compromised at this time. One thing's for certain...we can count on changes to these suggestions on a daily basis.

 

5 hours ago, BrianAlt said:

Not anymore.  Recommendation is now that everyone gets a booster 8 months after their second shot.

Probably should've said "HOURLY" instead of "daily" in my original comment. ?

Looks like I'll do a booster shot of whiskey tonight to celebrate the latest CDC suggestions...bottoms up! ? 

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Here is a Mayo clinic study about the need for booster shots.  Since they say the vaccines are still great at preventing hospitalizations then maybe we can still cruise without a booster.  Especially if you have had the Moderna vaccine.

https://www.tmj4.com/news/coronavirus/new-vaccine-study-shows-moderna-outperforming-pfizer-in-preventing-breakthrough-cases

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In my view, the Biden administration's announcement regarding the need for a booster is continuation of the ultra-conservative, looking like we are doing something policies. The unintended consequence of this is that no one will hear the additional information provided in White House and CDC press briefings today that vaccines are still effective in preventing serious illness and death. What they will think, and this thinking will be augmented by the continuous fear narrative from the media, that vaccines don't work and ask, why should I take the shots. I wonder if the administration considered that in what I consider a premature recommendation for boosters in the same ordered priorities as the initial shots were delivered. Lets look at the facts:

  • As of August 9th, 166M Americans were fully vaccinated. 49 states reported 8054 reinfections with COVID. That is a reinfection rate that caused serious illness or death of 0.0048%. Think about that for a moment and ask yourself does that reinfection rate warrant announcements that what will be seen by many as the vaccinations don't work, why should I take them? 
  • Worse, even the CDC doesn't like it's data and says so at their cumbersome web site. They then admit that they think the reported breakthrough cases are under counts. On what basis? The one thing I do agree with is their data sucks. I don't trust it, and for good reasons, yet this ultra conservative approach to the pandemic that the CDC is taking, with the requirement for boosters now being official as the latest, is going to precipitate untoward harm both economic and social. 
  • The current increase in new cases and concurrently but at a much lower rate of deaths and hospitalizations is both highly regional and strongly correlated with vaccination rates. If we want to contain this thing, the best thing to do is to get as many people as possible vaccinated - I say this notwithstanding a rational decision by many that can't or don't want to get vaccinated. I support that right to choose.
  • Studies show there is a large pool of people eligible for vaccination that don't know about the shot, can't take time off from work, child care, any number of reasons to get one or don't have the means to get to a place where they are being administered. Focus on that pool. Doing that can easily push the number of vaccinated Americans to an 80-90% level!  

I worry less about COVID than I do about the people's perceptions of the real risks. I've made it clear hear that I don't think the media helps clarifying the actual risks and how to live with COVID and manage those risk preferring instead to pursue this constant fear narrative. I worry less about COVID than I do about governments and businesses caving to public pressure to "DO SOMETHING" and in that process fail to properly evaluate actual risks and evaluate costs of restrictions to mobility and social interaction with PH benefits. Instead, will get more closings and more restrictions. It pisses me off.

With that background, the speculative answer to how will the cruise lines react to official announcements recommending boosters is that to be considered fully vaccinated and to board, in general, you'll need a booster. That will precipitate another round for the cruise lines of developing complicated algorithms depending on which vaccine you received to determine if you can board. More confusion entirely avoidable by federal PH officials recognizing that the available data makes it clear that the risk of reinfection precipitating serious disease is incredibly low with 1 shot of the J&J vaccine and two form the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The need for boosters correctly remains unknown for the majority of Americans. Given the known risks of reinfection the CDC's recommendations that boosters be administered to the general public is irresponsibly premature. 

 

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18 hours ago, JeffB said:
  • Worse, even the CDC doesn't like it's data and says so at their cumbersome web site. They then admit that they think the reported breakthrough cases are under counts. On what basis?

I can take a stab at that part.  There are plenty of people that have gotten or will get COVID and never know it because they have never been tested.  Some people just don't experience any symptoms so why would they get a test?  Some people who would have gotten symptoms, got the vaccine and it prevented their symptoms, so why would they get a test?

Where I work, pre-vaccine they regularly tested employees that still came onsite (remote working for everything possible) and of course there were some positive test results from people who had no idea.  These days, you can choose to continue regular testing (whether vaxed or unvaxed) or opt out by submitting proof of vaccination.  That means we could miss breakthrough cases and other employees could get it but we don't know.

People that want to travel may run into the need for a test.  People that want to stay home may not. So all we can say is that the reported cases are the minimum number of cases and minimum breakthrough rate.

I compare it to the census which I feel has the same problem.  You get the minimum count of people in a region/city/suburb/etc.  But how on earth do you prove it is accurate?  There are homeless people who are hard to count (and might get under or over counted since they move around).  There are people that want to avoid being counted due to immigration status.  There are people that think the census violates their freedoms/rights/whatever.  So you get the best result you can.

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2 hours ago, Atlantix2000 said:

But how on earth do you prove it is accurate?  

@Atlantix2000, point taken on why the CDC thinks their data on reinfection is an unercount. 

But the quote above is critical to my point. The CDC is advancing the need for boosters based on what? Data they can't prove is accurate. 

This isn't science and fact based policy making. It's pulling stuff out their backside to look like they're doing good things. 

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TBC, I have no problem with getting boosters WHEN AN APPROPRIATE TIME TO ADMINISTER THEM TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC IS DETERMINED.

IMO, unless the CDC is in possession of study details not released to the public, if they relied on only the Israeli experience, the announcement that boosters will start to be administered In September, is irresponsibly premature. That's because it will encourage people to conclude the vaccines aren't working so, I'm not getting them.

Posters have implied that profiting by Moderna and Pfizer is behind this. That's possible but I suspect that what is available to the CDC and not the public is proprietary study results from one of these companies. Those should go through a non-biased review committee and I'm not sure that's happened. In any event the announcement is poorly timed for the reasons above. Just another example of bad pandemic messaging from the Biden administration. 

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