Slovaks protest over Covid passports while we ask, were we just a herd of vaccine fools?

While good old Blighty blisters under summer heatwaves rarely seen before the Brits moan about it being hard to get away for a fortnight in the sun!

And, on the other hand ex-pats, like us, who want to go home, are being made to self-isolate because the NHS doesn’t recognise the jabs we legitimately had in Slovakia or the rest of Europe!

Now we ex-pats can visit UK without being ‘lepers’ – thanks to the NHS

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But be you a thwarted holidaymaker or a despairing returnee, one question very few seem to be asking our leaders is: “How long am I going to be protected by my jabs – the rest of my life or just a few weeks?”

It’s an important question that nobody knows the answer to – and for good reason. The vaccines haven’t been around long enough for us to work it out.

But this lack of knowledge, something we can do little about at the moment, and massive distrust is leading to major protests and dissent across the world.

And a few days ago the protests hit the parliamentary building in Bratislava… hundreds of people protested over a vote on new anti-Covid measures.

The anti-vaccers, object to an amendment that will allow the government to draft different measures for people who have been vaccinated and those who haven’t. Police at one point were said to have used tear gas to control the crowds.

So, who is right? And what do we actually know about how long the vaccine will keep us safe?

There is no doubt in most peoples’ minds – official and man-on-the-street – that vaccines have weakened the link between infection and hospitalisation.

But vaccines are definitely not the silver bullet against this slimy fatty blob (yes, the coronavirus bug has an uncanny resemblance to many of our politicians!) that has spent the best part of two years sucking freedom from our blood.

We simply don’t know how long protection lasts for those who are vaccinated. It’s a mystery.

However, two studies say that infection-induced immunity might last months or longer and vaccination may lengthen this immunity.

Well, nobody told me that when I bared my flaccid arm to a pneumatic young lady in a matching white coat and mask in an over-bearing utilitarian multi-storey school in the Slovak mountainside city where I was living temporarily.

According to one of the studies – Trusted Source, carried out for Nature – immune cells in our bone marrow keep a “memory” of coronavirus and protect us.

The other study decided that immune cells strengthen for about a year after infection.

“The data suggest that immunity in convalescent individuals will be very long lasting.” both studies suggest.

So, would it have been better to take it on the chin, or in the chest to be more accurate?

As the unprecedented vaccination programmes continues across the world, let’s look at the evidence: Vaccines for other viruses like influenza – which itself has many variants – give just a fleeting protection and need to be renewed every year.

However, others, for measles, mumps and rubella, give us lifelong protection.

Things are so uncertain that Pfizer is charged with producing 85 million booster shots for Australia in the next year.

Yale Medicine, one of the largest academic multispecialty practices in America, had this to say: “Though researchers know the vaccines have been effective against COVID-19 thus far, there is no track record to provide data for the future, which is the only way to know for sure.”

They say a vaccine is protective as long as we are measuring it.

Yale’s infectious diseases specialist Jaimie Meyer, MD, MS said: “The three coronavirus vaccines authorized for use in the United States provide a high degree of protection for at least three months, based on clinical trials.

“however, a  report in The New England Journal of Medicine  said that Moderna vaccine remained high for six months after the second shot.”

So, have the conspiracy theorists got lucky?

Are vaccines just a shot in the dark? A pernicious, dangerous, unknown invasion of our 60,000 miles of veins?

Yep, there are still nagging doubts about how long protection from the coronavirus vaccines will last. Will it wear off gradually or suddenly?

Will we burn and crash?

Or will we just need a booster shot?

Unfortunately, nobody can answer these questions.

All we do know for certain is that almost 40 million of us in the UK got so frightened of getting coronasvirus that we allowed Boris to get his people to stick a needle in our arms and fill us full of unknown drugs.

No wonder so many today – particularly on social media – are calling him the biggest Prick in good old blighted Blighty.

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