W.H.O. Warns Endless Booster Shots Not ‘Appropriate or Sustainable’

The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) warned international government health agencies Tuesday against administering “booster doses” of Chinese coronavirus vaccines to their populations.

“[A] vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable,” the W.H.O. wrote in a statement issued January 11 by its “Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition.”

“COVID-19,” also known as the Chinese coronavirus, is the name of the disease caused by SARS-C0V-2, a type of coronavirus. A “booster shot” is an additional dose of a vaccine a person receives after he or she has completed the full series of an inoculation.

The W.H.O. cited the “evolution of the virus,” i.e. “SARS-C0V-2,” as a reason against recommending booster shots on Tuesday.

SARS-C0V-2 first emerged in central China’s Wuhan city in the autumn or winter of late 2019, though much about the circumstances surrounding the virus’s true origin remains unclear. The disease caused by the virus spawned an ongoing global pandemic first declared by the W.H.O. — which is the international public health body of the United Nations — on March 11, 2020. The W.H.O. said on January 11 it has designated five strains of SARS-C0V-2 as “variants of concern” since March 2020 — “namely Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron — due to their impact on transmission, disease severity, or capacity for immune escape.”- READ MORE