Although a lot of the attention in recent months in this country has been focused on the willfully unvaccinated, there is another concern about COVID-19 vaccination at the opposite end of the serum spectrum.
How much protection is enough? Should America and other developed nations be lining up people for a third shot when the vast majority of the undeveloped world has yet to get the first one?
It’s a real dilemma, one that has not just potential health consequences but political and moral ramifications as well.
Last week, the head of the World Health Organization called for a moratorium on administering booster shots of COVID-19 until more of the world has been vaccinated.
A handful of nations have already begun administering booster shots, and others, including the United States, are considering it.
Although the science on this is still evolving, the belief is that the initial vaccines do not produce enough resistance to the virus, or the resistance wears off within the first year, if the person has a compromised immune system. That would make seniors citizens and people of any age with a medical condition that weakens their immune system prime candidates for booster shots. The emergence of the delta variant, and its ability to more easily bypass the vaccine’s defenses than earlier strains, has further boosted the case for booster shots.
As the World Health Organization points out, though, every booster shot given to already vaccinated individuals in wealthy nations potentially reduces what’s available for the unvaccinated in poorer ones. An aggressive booster shot initiative would further exaggerate the vaccine disparities between the developed and undeveloped parts of the world. According to the WHO, richer countries have administered 100 shots per 100 people on average, while low-income countries, due to their much smaller supply of vaccines, have provided only about 1.5 doses per 100 people.
You might dismiss that concern by saying that the U.S. has an obligation to take care of Americans first. That’s a hard argument to refute, unless you invoke what is says in the Bible about sharing life’s essentials: “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.”
Besides appealing to compassion, though, there is a practical reason to not hog the vaccines. Sharing them not only saves lives in other nations, but it protects American lives, too.
Variants of the coronavirus have the best chance of emerging in nations where vaccination levels are low. That’s what happened with the delta variant, which started in India and a few months later has become the dominant strain in the United States, creating a fourth surge whose effect is now playing out in disruptive and frightening ways. Even with travel restrictions in place between nations, there is no isolating a variant once it gets a good foothold in the country where it originates. It’s going to cross borders.
The WHO request is not outrageous. It asks for a hold on booster shots until at least 10% of the population in every country is vaccinated. It’s hoping that level of vaccination can be achieved in a couple of months, particularly if nations with a surplus of vaccines donate more of their doses to those with a shortage.
There may be a middle ground here for the United States. It could authorize boosters for only those with clinically diagnosed autoimmune disorders, and tell everyone else to hold off for now.
That would give time not only to aid the most vulnerable around the world but also for medical researchers to better determine whether boosters are, in fact, necessary and with what frequency.
- The Greenwood Commonwealth
