The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday said it no longer “routinely recommends” additional COVID-19 vaccine boosters for medium or low-risk people, but one Canadian doctor is warning the “advice isn’t probably the best.” The updated roadmap from WHO outlines three priority-use groups for COVID-19 vaccination: high, medium and low, and is designed to prioritize vaccines for those at greater risk of the disease.
Read more: WHO now recommends high-risk people get COVID booster 12 months after last dose The WHO recommended additional booster doses for high-priority groups such as older people, immunocompromised people of all ages, front-line health workers and pregnant people.
But for those who fall under the low and medium-risk group, WHO did not recommend additional COVID-19 boosters, citing “low public health returns.” The WHO’s updated guidance comes just weeks after Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) last updated its guidelines on boosters. “Society is caught between wanting this whole thing to be over and still reconciling that it’s still a threatening problem out there,” Dr.
Kashif Pirzada, a Toronto emergency room doctor, told Global News. “We see plenty of people with just two vaccines who get a fairly brutal illness…the most severe your illness, the more chances you’ll have long-term lingering symptoms.