I'm thinking of the multiple jab thing. Obviously there were all the scare stories about MMR that have left understandable concerns, but on the other hand I recall as a child having more than one vaccination together, I just don't remember which.
That being said, I fully accept that it's an issue that we might all ponder, when you look at what our bodies do or don't cope with and for me a key moment was a few years back reading a bit of research tht showed that most of the bus rails sampled on our local buses (in an urban area) had faecal matter with germs in it on them.
As someone with weird all/nothing 'germ' panics that I have to constantly damp down, I got very worried when I read that. But the more I thought of it, the more I went back to basics on it and overall quantity that in terms of the pandemic is being referred to as 'viral load'. We wash hands and wear masks and avoid touching faces not with an expectation (if we're realistic) that we'll get rid of all traces of sars-cov-2, but that we'll reduce it to a level at which our bodies can get rid of it unharmed.
That then takes us back to ordinary health precautions against viruses, bacteria & fungi. We don't mostly get rid of them all, we reduce to a level our bodies can fight them. Indeed, that's what traditional vaccines do.
Ironically, our efforts to reduce our contact with germs has led to some clinical researchers to draw a connection between overly sterile babyhood and childhood leukemia, and they've developed what they nicknamed a 'gloop' (they'll probably give it a fancy name if it becomes widely used) that consists of a mix of bacteria to give to babies, to give their immune system a kick start so it functions properly.
On the other hand, research has also shown all sorts of connections between things like gut microbiota and obesity, and is now even showing links between things like a range of bacteria and viruses and some sorts of dementia, so the notion that we need to come into contact with some germs to be healthy isn't an argument that we shouldn't try to avoid too much contact, or that we shouldn't be warier with germs our bodies find harder to handle.
So it's actually perfectly natural for us all to have concerns about how much our bodies can cope with in terms of our immune systems, because we live in a world where we're surrounded with germs and other things our immune systems might react to as if they were germs (e.g. pollen, various foods etc.) and getting the balance between not enough and too much is difficult.
That being so, I won't scorn people's concerns about how many vaccines to have at once; but on the other hand, I try personally to weigh it against a few other things, including how much our bodies cope with all at once anyway in terms of types of germs at once as opposed to quantity of a single type of germ at once, and what's realistic in terms of an underfunded and short-staffed NHS giving out vaccines.
I may be wrong, but the way I see it is this. Every time you split apart your flu and covid booster jabs, that's two appointments not one. That then delays either your other jab as you go to the back of the queue, or delays someone else's jab.
Even if it wasn't my other jab that was delayed and even if I didn't care about that other person whose jab was delayed, I have a vested interest in as many people as possible getting their jabs and boosters, because I reckon personally that the risk to my health of having flu and covid jabs together is less than the risk to my health of sitting next to someone on a bus that is still waiting for their first or second jabs whilst those of us onto boosters get them.
On the politics of it, personally I feel that if someone doesn't want both boosters together, they should be the one that goes to the back of the queue after the first one behind others that are still waiting. I think that that would be a fair compromise.
I feel that way about a Christmas event I'm thinking of booking a place on. Some performances are specifically socially distanced + immunity passport only. I've applied for my NHS letter and I'll book for one of those performances. A nice compromise between those of us that want to be more wary and those that don't.
