I can't believe there's people still questioning the vaccines being the way out, they've literally been the main reason any of us have been allowed out to the pub since April, workplaces operating as "normal", had a good time for the Euro's, for the whole of the summer and since.
Thankfully, I've been at pretty much 99% "normal" operation since April. It's not 100% but I don't feel restricted in any kind of way now, and certainly have zero fear. Obviously some others may be or feel more restricted, depends on their health or what services they're using.
Obviously there's still some pretty major restrictions with healthcare, and for their visitors, which must be a nightmare for those that need them, and everyone is sympathetic to that, but I can understand why they're there. They're far from ideal, but are certainly unfortunately necessary, and the only real simple solution to that. The restrictions for healthcare are in place though as a risk reduction measure and at a cost of where we're not restricted elsewhere, it's a balancing act, has to be give and take.
Yes, the vaccines wane, they were always going to, especially since they were designed for the original strain, never mind for Alpha or Delta. The fact they still offer major protection against these is well worth them having waning protection which can simply be boosted, as proven.
What is good to see is that the coverage/ antibody/ protection levels of those who had their boosters a long time ago is still exceptionally high. I think I read about one guy (the first guy) who had his Moderna booster 8 months ago, and his protection levels are still off the scale. Each vaccine offers higher and longer protection than the last, like with mot vaccines which require multiple doses or boosters. Pfizer is extremely similar to Moderna, and the AZ booster seemingly brings that on a par with those two, which is great.
I'm not sure why people mention "Are we meant to have a booster every 3 months forever?", well I know why they do it, it's to try and undermine the vaccines, for various reasons. We've not done this (boosters every 3 month), nowhere has, and the duration between each one would be longer. If we had done this we would have people booking their 5th for next month!
Our most at risk had the first in Dec/Jan, their second in Feb/March/ April and their boosters started in October, which is 6/7 months later, not three, and they are by far the most at risk, and have the worst immune systems. Coverage could last twice as long as the previous coverage, which probably means the most at risk get boosted yearly, at the absolute worst, which they pretty much do for Flu anyway and it could even end up being combined with those. They probably won't even need it every year (after next year), but it would just make sense to do it anyway, if Covid is still around (which it will be).
Delta changed all the rules, changed the maths, and also changed what we need to do to combat those, virus evolve, and so should the thinking to combat those.
Our advanced vaccine rollout has cost us recently (for hospitalisations), it's effectively brought the waning forward, the same happened to Israel before us, but now look where they are, after their boosters. We're heading the right way on that too now.
We likely will have a "better" winter than some EU countries as our vaccines/ boosters have been rolled out well/ early, uptake has been good and as we've been "open" for 6/7 months, we've built up more infections/ natural immunity too. The plan was clearly to bring our wave forward, or just maintain infection, as we didn't want it hitting in winter, all at once, which is what is happening to some other places, and why they've now got a problem. Their problem is different to ours.
Some countries are paying the price for a poor vaccine uptake, but if the people won't protect themselves, I can't really blame their governments for taking it out of their hands with restrictions or vaccine mandates, to protect their healthcare. It's reactive mind, and it should have been preventative. We likely won't need those restrictions/ mandates as a whole, as we've had the vaccines and the cases, and there's little sign we will stop both.
Kids (the only largely unvaccinated groups) have been the driver for our recent case surges, and there's ultimately been spill over from this, it was always going to happen until vaccine coverage, or cases got high enough to overcome Delta, or match it, which is about where we are now.