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by peteradio
1374 days ago
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> 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. |
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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.