When Health Canada on Tuesday approved Moderna’s updated Spikevax vaccine – designed to target Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 – health officials avoided labelling the latest shot a ‘booster’ during a technical briefing. Here’s why they say they’re dropping the word.
During the early pandemic the anti-reality folks said that the Covid vaccine wasn’t actually a vaccine since you didn’t need boosters with a real vaccine like the polio vaccine. I pointed out that the polio vaccine primary series required three boosters. No, no, they said…those were part of the vaccine, not boosters. I pointed out that each subsequent dose boosted the immune response so they were, in fact, boosters. No, no, they said. They were part of the primary series of the vaccine, not boosters. I then pointed out that in some recipients the immune response from the primary series wasn’t strong enough and that they required, “additional boosters”, according to the description of the vaccine. “You shut your porky mouth, they said.”
Whether it’s called a booster or a vaccine doesn’t matter to me. I’m going to get it.