Aside from potential side effects, another reason NSSS-12 respondents gave for not keeping up with COVID boosters was the feeling they were no longer necessary.
Again, it is understandable that people would feel this way because the illness seems less severe these days for most people who get it.
This is no coincidence because the severity of the COVID illness is vastly reduced by vaccines.
A study of people aged 50+ in NSW at the height of the pandemic showed that “unvaccinated individuals had a 7.7-fold greater mortality rate than those who were fully vaccinated… which rose to 11.2-fold in those who had received a booster dose”.
In other words, unvaccinated people were many times more likely to die from COVID than those who kept up with the booster program.
Studies from around the world have consistently shown that vaccination provides excellent protection against hospitalisation or death from COVID-19. People who routinely have the recommended boosters are much less likely to experience severe illness if they contract COVID, and less likely to die from it.
Hence, the generally high rates of COVID vaccination in Australia are a big part of the reason why most people who get COVID now experience it as a bad flu.
However, the protection provided by vaccines drops off with time, hence the need for regular boosters to keep up the protection.
This is no different from getting a tetanus booster if you step on a rusty nail and it’s been over 10 years since your last one. COVID boosters are just needed more often than tetanus boosters.
Another argument made by some non-boosters in the NSSS-12 survey was the notion that COVID vaccines are ineffective because a vaccinated person can still get COVID. Such cases are called “breakthrough infections” because they break through the vaccine barrier.
This is once more an understandable view. But it is based on a narrow view of how vaccines work.
We have vaccines for many different diseases these days and they each work slightly differently. Some can protect against infection altogether. Others lower the risk of infection, or they mitigate the disease’s severity.
The ability of a vaccine to eliminate a disease also varies with the cause of disease, and COVID is a fast-evolving virus.
The fact that breakthrough COVID infections are possible does not mean the vaccines are ineffective. They are effective at reducing our likelihood of severe disease and death.