Get your jabs, boosters to safely ride latest Covid wave: virologist
Getting Covid-19 jabs is necessary even though they do not completely prevent the infection, an expert virologist said.
In a Facebook post on Friday, Dr Yong Poovorawan urged everybody to get vaccinated against Covid-19, as vaccines can help ease the severity of the disease and stimulate immunity.
He explained that the immunity offered by the vaccine will help the body create antibodies to fight off the infection. However, he said, this immunity will reduce over time.
With the disease mutating all the time, people will need to keep their immunity high and to do this, everybody should take their booster shots, he said.
He likened getting vaccinated to training conscripts to identify the enemy or virus in this case.
For instance, he said, soldiers will be in reserve when there is no enemy but will be able to jump into action immediately as soon as they see the enemy approaching.
Similarly, he said, a booster dose is like having a reserve battalion ready to attack the approaching enemy.
Yong also said on Thursday that a sixth wave of Covid-19 infections has been sparked in Thailand thanks to the BA.5 subvariant that is fast spreading among students.
He speculated that the actual number of daily new infections will come in at around 10,000, though the number of patients requiring hospitalisation will be around 2,000. The daily death rate will be around 20.
