RELATED: COVID-19 booster: Pfizer to seek extra shot for healthy kids 5 to 11COVID-19 vaccines still are providing strong protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death, even against omicron.
That variant is so different from the original coronavirus that it more easily slips past the immune system’s defenses, although studies in the U.S.
and elsewhere show an original booster dose strengthens protection. Some countries offer particularly vulnerable people a second booster; in the U.S., that’s anyone 50 or older or those with a severely weakened immune system.Health officials have made clear that giving boosters every few months isn’t the answer to the mutating virus.
They’ve begun deliberating how to decide if and when to change the vaccine recipe.Just switching to a vaccine that targets the latest variant is risky, because the virus could mutate again.