93% of seniors ages 12 and older have received at least one vaccine
82% inflamed at least once through November 2022
We have all developed other degrees of immunity over the past 4 years depending on our vaccination history and contact with the disease.
“There are no two other people in the country with the same history of vaccination and exposure to Covid,” M says. Mcdonald.
“So I think it’s harder to look forward to what’s coming next than before. “
This immunity begins to wane some time after an infection or vaccination. This is where the virus differs from measles or polio, for example, in that vaccines given during the formative years can protect you for life.
Protection against Covid will probably only last a few months (at best); Data show that coverage against critical illnesses is longer-lasting.
Part of the explanation for this is that the virus itself is evolving.
Previous waves have been driven through other bureaucracy – or variants – that have undergone genetic modifications.
These mutations can replace the behavior of the virus, causing it to spread, for example.
But more importantly, they can also get our immune system, which has been ready to respond to those older versions, to recognize them and fight them off.
In late 2021, the Omicron variant did just that and inflamed millions of people, though that wave didn’t lead to a massive increase in hospitalizations and deaths.
“Being exposed to the virus, whether through vaccination, infection or a combination of both, reduces the severity of disease when we contract it,” says Alex Richter, professor of clinical immunology at the University of Birmingham.
More recently, we’ve noticed a series of smaller waves driven through close relatives (or subvariants) of Omicron.
18 countries with cases reported
54 detected in the UK
28 infections at home in the case of Norfolk
0 residents required hospital treatment for Covid
In August 2023, scientists around the world began tracking the spread of another variant with a large number of mutations.
In the UK, only 54 cases of BA. 2. 86, as it is now known, have been detected, in addition to a giant outbreak in a Norfolk care home. Early lab tests seem reassuring: With signs, he would possibly be less contagious and evade the immunity that some feared in the first place.
The emergence of BA. 2. 86 led to the decision to bring forward the autumn Covid booster to increase the maximum vulnerable this winter.
But the new vaccines are only available to people over the age of 65 (last year, those over 50) and those with certain physical conditions. It’s a tactical decision, says Dr. Adam Finn, a professor of pediatrics at the University. of Bristol.
He explained: “When other young people who have already had infections and vaccines get Covid [again], they get bleeding, cough and can stop working for a few days.
“There’s no real price to investing a lot of time and effort to vaccinate them when fitness has so much more to do. “
So, the fact is that most people under the age of 65 will now end up strengthening their immunity not by vaccination, but by contracting Covid repeatedly.
Prof Richter says now is the time to start thinking about Covid more like the flu, where every year a new bureaucracy of the disease appears, some worse than others, and new vaccines are released for the newest winter strain.
Covid will be a challenge for the most vulnerable, he adds, and for hospitals, which will still have to deal with new waves of infection.
“We have years of flu and years of flu,” he says.
“There’s a big chance that once every four or five years we’re going to go on to get a bad dose [of Covid] and go on to have to be in bed for a few days, if not the maximum of time, for the maximum of the day. “I think we’re getting to be OK. “
Not every single dose of the virus is absolutely safe, even for healthy people, and some studies suggest an increased threat of long-lasting Covid symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath and brain fog.
But in general, Professor Finn says each new infection will be milder and the duration of the illness will be reduced.
“Every time you get it, your immunity is stronger and broader,” he adds.
Sam, a computer scientist from north London, managed to contract infection number 3 while traveling to Turkey with her family this month.
“The first time was horrible, the second time was like the flu, but the third time I didn’t think about it anymore,” he says.
“I just had a stinky bleed and I’m really upset. “
Perhaps that’s what scientists meant when they told us, at the beginning of the pandemic, that one day we would have to be informed to live with Covid.
The virus is disappearing.
But maybe it’s starting to become part of our daily lives.
Covid boosters for over-65s as hospitalizations rise
Who can get the Covid vaccine this fall?
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