WHO recommends new COVID shots should target only XBB variants

Responsible and measured from WHO as usual. Good.

Just a recommendation.

The WHO has no legal authority to compel anyone to do anything.

With their numerous mishaps for a variety of medical-related matters the last few years, its "recommendations" basically fall on deaf ears.

No one forgets their mask fiasco, and it's been a comedy of continuing errors.

@RKL

Just a recommendation.

The WHO has no legal authority to compel anyone to do anything.

For now, yes. Are you aware of the WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty, aka WHO CA+? You can read the Zero Draft of the treaty here https://apps.who.int/gb/inb/pdf_files/inb4/A_INB4_3-en.pdf

The WHO has no legal authority to compel anyone to do anything.

of course

For now, yes. Are you aware of the WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty, aka WHO CA+? You can read the Zero Draft of the treaty here https://apps.who.int/gb/inb/pdf_files/inb4/A_INB4_3-en.pdf

Yes, aware, and even if such treaty were to be enacted, the WHO as the agency would not have authority over the US for example, which has its own global health authority the CDC, which currently does have legal authority.

CDC, which currently does have legal authority.

The CDC has worldwide authority.

Good to know that.

The WHO has no legal authority to compel anyone to do anything.

The WHO and any other scientific authorities derive the value of their recommendations not from imposing them but from the way they use valid and objective evidence to reach scientific conclusions.

A doctor do not have any legal authority to force a patient to undergo a treatment that cure their health problems either, that does not take anything from said treatment.

If the primary series is no longer authorized and thus unavailable and all future shots are merely boosters, that means the currently unvaccinated will never be eligible to take a Covid vaccine.

Booster refers only to the dosage made after the primary vaccination, there is nothing in the vaccines that makes them "only" boosters.

Yes, aware, and even if such treaty were to be enacted, the WHO as the agency would not have authority over the US for example, which has its own global health authority the CDC, which currently does have legal authority.

If according to you "authority" means automatically legal power you are saying the CDC is not one, because it can't force anything in other countries. You are contradicting your own baseless claim.

The WHO and any other scientific authorities derive the value of their recommendations not from imposing them but from the way they use valid and objective evidence to reach scientific conclusions.

*International Health Regulations . . .This agreement does not allow the WHO to dictate national health care policy or create binding law in the U.S. or any nation, *

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/05/25/fact-check-world-health-organization-has-no-authority-u-s/9840330002/

Here is the actual guideline by the Japanese health authorities.

Booster shots are available for all people who fulfill all of the following conditions:

Which is exactly what I wrote.

The same vaccine used for the primary doses is called a booster if the person fulfill the conditions to recieve it.

You are misinformed, unvaccinated people are in fact not eligible for booster shots.

I never said that unvaccinated people would get boosters, I said the same vaccine can be used for them simply because it would not be a booster but a primary dose.

Your confusion is thinking a booster is a specially formulated dose of the vaccine that can't be used as a primary one.

The ministry of health, labor and welfare have guidance information about receiving the first doses of the vaccine even now.

https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/0000121431_00218.html

It is not written anywhere that the vaccine is not available for those that need them,

International Health Regulations . . .This agreement does not allow the WHO to dictate national health care policy or create binding law in the U.S. or any nation, 

Why do you quote an argument and then discuss something completely different?

The CDC has not global legal authority, but you still called it one. That means you understand this is not a requisite for a medical or scientific authority.

Again, the value of a medical authority comes from the reliability of their recommendations, not their ability to impose them. Ignoring this argument in your reply means you are recognizing you were wrong in assuming this was not the case.

Again, the value of a medical authority comes from the reliability of their recommendations, not their ability to impose them. Ignoring this argument in your reply means you are recognizing you were wrong in assuming this was not the case.

You agree the WHO had no legal authority, as you cannot present any evidence supporting an argument the other way.

Good you finally gave up spamming that illogical reasoning.

You agree the WHO had no legal authority, as you cannot present any evidence supporting an argument the other way.

Scientific and medical authorities do not require legal authority, that is where you were wrong assuming it was necessary and it was clearly demonstrated as false. That also applies to the CDC, which you called a global authority, meaning you recognized this as an irrelevant thing on the discussion.

Trying to insist on this irrelevant thing you mistakenly though was necessary only shows you are insisting on a mistake.

The group suggested no longer including the original COVID-19 strain in future vaccines,

Only a "suggestion."

We'e seen their previous suggestions--and recommendations,.

As noted above, the WHO has ZERO legal authority.

Suggest away. Recommend away.

WHO stands by recommendation to not wear masks if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-recommendation-trnd/index.html

Only a "suggestion."

A suggestion based on the best available information, the same as a doctor when it suggest treatment for a disease. Pretending a scientific or medical authority requires legal authority for their recommendations to have value is the same mistake endlessly repeated, no matter how many accounts do it, it is still an irrational position to take.

WHO stands by recommendation to not wear masks if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick

going more than 3 years ago (when the evidence for the efficacy of masks on the general population was not yet available as it is now) is one thing you keep doing that gets your comments deleted, that you insist on this off topic comment time and time again only shows you have no actual argument for the topic at hand.

That's because the original Pfizer vaccine is still available in Japan (Moderna and AZ have been pulled).

Which still means that any vaccine available can be treated in the same way. There is no problem for people with people being vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine even if it has been used as a booster, because nothing in the vaccine means it can ONLY be used as a booster.

If only boosters are available, unvaccinated people will not be eligible to receive them.

that is not a danger, because vaccines can be used as primary doses even when they have been used as boosters, the same as the Pfizer vaccines do.

A booster (by definition) is only for someone who has completed the initial series.

Irrelevant, because what this mean is that the vaccine is simply not called a booster when used in the initial series.

This also applies to the usual vaccines used long before the pandemic, the same vaccine is used in the initial and booster phases of vaccination.

Your personal opinion is inconsistent with established health authorities and experts.

You have not provided any reference to prove this claim you personally made, I already provided a source where the Japanese government clearly says vaccination for people without any dose is available and there is zero notes saying that this will change in the future.

Vaccines designated as boosters are not approved to be administered as initial series vaccines. Certainly in Japan this is the case.

This does absolutely nothing to refute the fact that in Japan the vaccines used as boosters are the same as the ones used as initial doses.

The vaccines administered as the initial series are different than those labelled "booster"

Can you provide a link to the vaccines given in Japan being labeled as only used as boosters? because that is a claim only you are making.

Unvaccinated people in Japan can not receive a booster vaccine, regardless of your personal theory.

No theory of mine, a site from the government clearly says people can still use the same vaccine currently being used for boosters.

Hopefully more references can clear your confusion.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-authorizes-changes-simplify-use-bivalent-mrna-covid-19-vaccines

*Most unvaccinated individuals** may receive a single dose of a bivalent vaccine, rather than multiple doses of the original monovalent mRNA vaccines. *

*Children 6 months through 5 years of age who are unvaccinated** may receive a two-dose series of the Moderna bivalent vaccine (6 months through 5 years of age) OR a three-dose series of the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent vaccine (6 months through 4 years of age). Children who are 5 years of age may receive two doses of the Moderna bivalent vaccine or a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent vaccine. *

Bivalent vaccines (originally approved as boosters) can be used for the initial vaccination according to established health authorities and experts.

Every couple of months we get invites from our local hospital for boosters which we just ignore.

Once again why would unvaccinated people like myself need the vaccine? We’ve already proven it never worked and it’s now killing people

No such thing, the scientific consensus is that vaccines do reduce the risk for anybody for whom they are indicated, and they are not "killing people" that is just what antivaxxer propaganda is baselessly claiming, something already disproved by the experts.

Note the word "booster" is completely absent from the references you provided.

Both bivalent vaccines were first approved as boosters that fact do not change just because they are called now bivalent (since they are no longer approved only as boosters) this instead helps clarifying that your mistaken perception that "boosters" were specially formulated and impossible to be used in primary vaccination is not true.

Please provide a single official source from an established mainstream health authority that says that a booster vaccine can be used as the initial dose.

You are the one making the claim that the experts said the contrary, and after being explicitly called for a reference where they say vaccines used as boosters can't be used as primary vaccines you were completely unable to bring even one. That speaks a lot about who is the one that is claiming something contradicted by the experts.

References where the same vaccine is recommended as booster and primary are on the other side very easy to get,

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/covid-19-vaccine-comparison

Options for getting the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine changed in April 2023, when the U.S. recommended updated mRNA (bivalent) shots for most inoculations, including primary vaccinations and additional (booster) shots.

The one refusing to offer any evidence here is you.

A suggestion based on the best available information, the same as a doctor when it suggest treatment for a disease. Pretending a scientific or medical authority requires legal authority for their recommendations to have value is the same mistake endlessly repeated, no matter how many accounts do it, it is still an irrational position to take.

No, the actual scientists and medical experts provide science based advice, as opposed to the agency the WHO, which makes suggestions that take into account factors other than those medicine -related.

Good to see you understand the WHO only makes suggestions though.

Going back to the beginning of the Covid pandemic, the best available medical information pointed to weating masks for protection.

The WHO, of course, "suggested" otherwise.

WHO stands by recommendation to not wear masks if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-recommendation-trnd/index.html

No, the actual scientists and medical experts provide science based advice, as opposed to the agency the WHO, which makes suggestions that take into account factors other than those medicine -related.

Any source for this? because your personal bias is not an argument that proves this. What evidence do you have that this recommendation is wrong because of factors different from the best avaialbe scientific evidence?

Good to see you understand the WHO only makes suggestions though.

You are the one that had the mistaken idea that a medical authority required being able to force things, which makes no sense. Even medical doctors can only "make suggestions" because the value of a medical or scientific authority recommendations comes from the scientific basis of them, not from being able to force people.

Going back to the beginning of the Covid pandemic, the best available medical information pointed to weating masks for protection.

You make that claim in every article that talks about the WHO, but when asked for that supposed evidence that made the recommendations (including of others institutions and agencies like the CDC) wrong you never provide it. That is because there was no such thing, the evidence appeared during the pandemic. Which is what justified the changes in recommendations not only from the WHO but from all other medical authorities as well.

This is the reason you have to use links 3 years old instead of anything recent.

WHO stands by recommendation to not wear masks if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick

My father who is a medical doctor in Australia quivered at this news when it first came out, because most of the doctors in Australia were already leaning to advising the majority of the population to wear masks based on those doctors' experience and studies provided by the AHPPC.

The joke going around at the time was the WHO said what?

My father who is a medical doctor in Australia quivered at this news when it first came out, because most of the doctors in Australia were already leaning to advising the majority of the population to wear masks based on those doctors' experience and studies provided by the AHPPC.

You have never provided those studies, only say they exist but are somehow impossible to present. That is not a reference, just hearsay.

The joke going around at the time was the WHO said what?

The WHO was not alone in this, even the AHPPC clearly said so

https://www.health.gov.au/news/australian-health-protection-principal-committee-ahppc-statement-on-coronavirus-covid-19-24-february-2020

There is no evidence of community transmission in Australia at present and there is no reason for the general community to take additional precautions, such as wearing masks, or avoiding restaurants and other places of public gathering. However, it is a timely reminder that everyone should practise good hygiene to protect against infections.

You have never provided those studies, only say they exist but are somehow impossible to present. That is not a reference, just hearsay.

I have read several of those studies, which are easily accessible.

But again, the WHO, an agency, not an authority, dropped the ball big on this.

And all the medical authorities agree.

Yet you can't do it even now, if is proof that those supposed studies do not exist, else you could have just provided that reference.

Some of those studies have been circulating for almost 20 years. Easily accessible. Anyone who cannot access those is definitely not part of any medical or science field, and so would have difficulty comprehending them.

The WHO is the recognized global authority on global health, you claiming it is not do not contradict this fact.

No, just your simple personal bias. The WHO even calls itself an agency.

Check out their website.

It's easy to read.

Of course this would not be an issue but for a lab leak.

Some of those studies have been circulating for almost 20 years. 

But they say the opposite of what you claim, which is why you can't even mention them when asked for references.

The WHO even calls itself an agency.

The WHO calls itself the global authority on public health matters, if you accept their own definition is a valid reference then you are accepting also this.

Of course this would not be an issue but for a lab leak.

Not according to the experts that say the natural origin is the only realistic explanation that fits the evidence.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8337

What evidence and argument this expert use to refute the two scientific papers that explain why this is not a realistic possibility? Unless a proper discussion is done about the available evidence that clearly disprove what is being said the value of the declaration becomes null. The reports have been published for almost a year by now, that means it is not valid to ignore them and pretend they do not disprove this possibility as realistic.

What evidence and argument this expert use to refute the two scientific papers that explain why this is not a realistic possibility?

Maybe read the link in which the the former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention talks. And the US Dept. of Energy, with one of the biggest science institutions in the world agrees.

Plus the aurhors in your "sources" weren't even in China when the outbreak began. Also, your sources rely on input from the WHO---which has been widely discredited.

Finally, those links are hearsay.

Just because something is posted on the internet and reposted by an anonymous poster here does not mean those are valid sources.