Quote:
Originally Posted by 1andrew1
Which evidence in particular are you referring to?
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My guess is it's the WHO announcement. The WHO who famously denied airborne transmission until June.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52945210
The WHO in offering their 'interperatation' have to consider a multitude of factors including confidence in worldwide vaccination programmes, current spread of variants, availability of vaccines.
On balance of course it makes sense at a global level to distribute the AZ vaccine to all age groups. As we sit today, you're far more likely to catch the older variants than the new ones in almost all territories in the world. You're probably more likely to be offered an AZ vaccine than any other. Should people not get vaccinated and wait? Of course not, that's patently ridiculous. It's better in arms than in the bin.
That said, as the race to ease restrictions here and abroad presses on the other variant questions become more important. I do note the shift from reaching the "herd immunity threshold" to "preventing severe disease". If that's not possible I'm sure the PR spin will move on to how it's a race and good that we've scaled up infrastructure for the Autumn booster. Which is actually true, I'd just not be getting my hopes up for a quick end to restrictions unless test, trace, isolate gets the SA/Kent variants under control and border measures keep the Brazil variants out.