A leading Far North pharmaceutical expert believes having the option to receive a yearly COVID-19 booster will be as common as getting your recommended yearly flu shot.

As is stands worldwide health experts recommend people be triple vaxxed to provide maximum immunity against the worldwide virus.

Now, we are being told that going forward it will be the norm to have the option to receive a yearly COVID-19 shot to maintain immunity, but, importantly, not a compulsory measure.

“At this point we know how the common flu behaves and that is why we advise people get their yearly flu shots around April,” Trent Twomey, president of Guild Pharmacy Guild of Australia, told Newsport.

“But coronavirus and the vaccine for the virus haven’t been around as long, so we are still learning every day.
“What we do know is that there will be a winter corona dose available in the future for the elderly and at-risk community members.

“Sometime after that it will be an option, but not a compulsory measure, for the rest of the population.
“We still don’t know if we’ll need another top up come next summer.

“Going forward it’s a chance or possibility people will have the option to receive a yearly dose to improve their immunisation against the virus.”

The expert said it’s time we start to stop catastrophizing the virus, but rather treat it now with some calm normalcy.

“What we want to do going forward is start treating it just like we would any other virus, including the flu,” Mr Twomey explained.

“We really want to normalise the language, we want to be more focused on saying things like ‘maintaining our immunisation and maintaining our protection’, opposed to things like ‘have you received your latest booster shot?’.”

After a slow start the country has united to confront the virus.

“To have one of the highest immunisation rates of first, second and third booster shots in the world in 2022 after coming from the bottom in 2021 is a real credit to every Australian,” Mr Twomey said.