Posted here instead, since @[email protected] already shared the variant visualization

Currently, over half of infections in the US are from the KP3 variant. The virus is mutating so fast our vaccine production is struggling to keep up. The current vaccines target KP2, which is closely related to KP3. These vaccines will better protect you against what is currently circulating compared to the vaccines we have had previously.

I mean even if the vaccine is the exact same as it was last year it's still worth getting. I wouldn't fret too much over it. Vaccines for viruses like covid aren't effective forever, so it's still worth it to get a booster.

tl;dr - Yes, it's a good idea to get the vaccine. The new vaccine will provide protection from the newest common strain of the virus.

Since we aren't taking steps to control the spread of the virus, and the vaccines aren't sterilizing vaccines, and because it's so god damn infectious, the virus mutates about 3-4x as quickly as the flu, and frequent vaccinations are needed.

Vaccines cause your body to make antibodies to fight the virus for approximately 2-6 months, depending on the person. After the protection from antibodies wear off we are reliant on T and B immune cells to fight the virus, which is more risky.

In theory the T and B cell protection should be "good enough" for most normal healthy people, and a regular infection won't do much damage, and your body will create another round of antibodies for another several months until you are either infected again or can get a new vaccine. Unfortunately, for T and B immune cells to work the virus will have entered the bloodstream by that point and it's a roll of the dice as to how far the infection gets and how much damage it does before those cells can get to work to clear the virus and new antibodies are produced.

The sheer amount of people being infected means that the people for whom this protection isn't nearly "good enough" are staggeringly high, resulting in high death rates among the medically vulnerable most of the year, and shocklingly high long covid rates for everyone else. Along with people who just feel "off" for months after covid, or have damage to parts of the body were we don't "feel" damage.

IMO we really should be vaccinating twice a year, with vaccines updated to match the current strains, to provide more protection from antibodies. And because the virus is mutating so quickly, the antibodies you do have might not be enough to prevent infection. It all depends on what vaccines you got, what you've been exposed to, and how your body reacts to all of it.

The virus is basically common in high rates, everywhere, for most of the year. But since they don't want to ask healthy people to get two vaccines a year, and the benefits of it aren't totally certain at this point with theoretical downsides, in the US they settled on softly recommending one vaccine before the fall. And only about 20% of people are even bothering with the new vaccines at this point. Rolling the dice with constant infections is how most of the world is handling it, and if you skip the vaccine for a year this is what you will be doing.

We'll see how it plays out over the next several years. Better vaccines are in the works (like mucosal vaccines, which will hopefully prevent the virus from entering the bloodstream where it does the most damage) but it will be at least a year or more before they are approved, if the technology even pans out.

To me it seems pretty obvious that the more infections you can avoid, whether they end up making you seriously ill or not, the better off you will be in the long term. That means getting all the vaccinations you can get.

In the sense of needing a yearly booster, it's just like the flu. Immunity doesn't last forever, and changes in prevailing strains make your extant immunity less effective.