[dragontamer]

BA.5 avoids the immunity you gained from Delta, Alpha, and the original.

If you got COVID-19 this July-ish (when BA.5 was biggest), maybe you don't need a vaccine update. But given how much the virus has evolved, it only makes sense to update your body to the newest version that's out there.

If the next big strain is from the BA.5 lineage (or closely related lines like Omicron), having your body trained on the new proteins / RNA should help a lot.

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Fortunately, it's not as big a deal because original strain / original vaccine looks like it still prevents hospitalization and deaths. So this is strictly about reducing the spread of Omicron / BA.5 and related substrains.

[peteradio]

> BA.5 avoids the immunity you gained from Delta, Alpha, and the original.

Is this based on serology studies? Or are there studies that show sharp risk increase for my demographic?

> Fortunately, it's not as big a deal because original strain / original vaccine looks like it still prevents hospitalization and deaths. So this is strictly about reducing the spread of Omicron / BA.5 and related substrains.

That's exactly what I'm wondering. I personally don't worry for myself, if I saw something convincing that showed reduction in transmission, common good all that then I'd potentially do this for someone else. But I'm not interested in participating in free experimentation for big pharma.

[dragontamer]

https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMc2209479/suppl_fi...

Page 9 in the PDF clearly shows that original strain had the least protection, while BA.1/BA.2 (Omicron) had the most protection vs BA.5, but it was still possible to be reinfected. Yes, this includes your demographic. (Population 12-and-older for this study).

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Delta was the first major strain that avoided immunity (IIRC: Gamma was also avoiding immunity to a greater degree than Delta, but Delta outcompeted Gamma). Omicron outcompeted Delta and also avoided immunity, and BA.5 is the mutant of Omicron that further avoids immunity.

Getting your body used to the original strain (aka: your original infection and/or the original vaccine), plus this updated BA.5 specific booster shot, seems to only make sense.

Especially because the vaccine is like, free? Your health insurance wants you to take it because it means less costs to them than if you got sick.

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I should note that even if you don't get hospitalized or dead from the virus, there's still the chance of "long COVID", and other such complications if you get sick. So it still is to your personal benefit to get the vaccine IMO, especially since it targets the latest strain.

[thunky]

> this is strictly about reducing the spread of Omicron / BA.5 and related substrains

From cdc.gov:

Updated COVID-19 boosters add Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 spike protein components to the current vaccine composition, helping to restore protection that has waned since previous vaccination by targeting variants that are more transmissible and immune-evading.

[dragontamer]

The original vaccine still has strong protective effects vs even BA.5 though.

That's my point. The original vaccine may be "worse" than the BA.5-specific vaccine that came out last week. But its still doing its most important job (ie: keeping people out of the hospital and/or morgue).

"Not getting sick" is still useful (and BA.5 specific vaccines should be great at that). But is kind of a secondary or even tertiary concern of mine. Deaths and hospitalizations are my #1 and #2 statistics that I'm worried about with regards to this subject.

[thunky]

I just don't see where the CDC or anyone else is saying that the new boosters are meant to prevent sickness but not to protect against hospitalization and death.

This is from fda.gov:

The updated COVID-19 vaccine boosters are designed to give you broad protection against COVID-19, including better protection against the Omicron variant.

COVID-19 vaccines can help protect against severe illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19. As the virus changes and your immunity naturally decreases over time, you may lose some of that protection.

The updated (bivalent) booster vaccines are authorized to help provide better protection against COVID-19.

The reason most people are taking the booster, if I were to hazard a guess, is because they do not want to die or get severely ill. If the booster was only good for preventing minor sickness, well that changes the equation. I mean, the booster itself will likely make them feel sick anyway.

Maybe you're right that original vaccine still provides strong protection against severe illness and death, but it would be nice to hear that from the CDC and FDA as these boosters are rolled out so that those that are trying to decide whether or not to take it have a better understanding of the potential benefits or lack thereof.