White House complains they don't have enough money for a fourth dose of Coronavirus vaccine...

 

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. Politico/AP.

The White House is saying that they do not have enough money for a fourth dose of the Coronavirus vaccine for most Americans. Politico. Congress did not authorize a $22.5 billion bill to fund the fight against the virus and a $15.6 attachment to the omnibus spending bill. A fourth shot has not even been approved and there are questions about how effective the booster will be against the prevailing strains, Omicron and the new BA2 subvariant. Most virus restrictions have been lifted throughout the country and cases have not risen in the United States, but cases have been rising in other countries. 

My Comment:

It's hard not to see this is anything but a cash grab for the vaccine companies. This would be billions of dollars more for them and given their vaccines have made them billions of dollars already, I think enough is enough. 

And I think it's pretty stupid to continue vaccinations at this point anyways. I do support it for certain people, with major risks and bad immune systems, but for normal people it doesn't seem worth it. Why? Because the virus has changed. Omicron is not the same virus as the original Wuhan strain and it is dramatically less deadly and it seems that the BA2 subvariant is even less deadly than that.  

I don't think the current vaccines are capable of stopping Omicron, given how easily the variant spread even in highly vaccinated countries. They were made for the original virus but that virus is long gone now. Vaccines might not be totally useless but at this point they aren't that useful either. 

And it's not like any new vaccines are going to be developed for Omicron. And it's easy to see why, by the time they did and got approval for it, Omicron wouldn't be the main variant. Indeed, it's already being replaced by BA2. So what is the point?

Another problem is that the vaccines have been proven to have side effects and many of them are pretty bad. We still don't have long term data on how dangerous the vaccines but given the weakness of Omicron the costs probably no longer outweigh the benefits for all but the most vulnerable people. 

But the biggest reason why this is a dumb idea? Because nobody cares anymore. I stopped caring about the virus last year already, as soon as the vaccines were released, let alone now when it's basically a cold virus. I did get the first two doses of the vaccine but I did not do so for the booster and I have no interest in doing so. 

My reasoning is why would I take additional shots of a vaccine that wasn't developed for the disease strain that dominant, isn't that effective, has risks against a disease that is no longer a threat and I have somehow avoided for two years? And a lot of people that have had the disease wonder why they should take another dose of vaccine for a disease that was mild? If money is given to this effort I see those vaccine doses rotting away in some warehouse. The vaccine companies won't care, they will already have been paid...