PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The spread of the omicron COVID-19 variant is re-introducing a lot of misinformation around vaccine effectiveness.
“I have natural immunity so I don’t need a vaccine.”
“I know I’ll just have mild symptoms if I get COVID-19.”
“I don’t need a booster.”
KYW Newsradio In Depth’s final special of 2021, “Facts Over Fear,” which is presented by Independence Blue Cross, breaks down the truth with Dr. Krys Johnson, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Temple University.
Listen to the full interview in the player below:
For starters, the omicron variant has had about 30 generic mutations, which surprised many scientists. That’s a concern because, with that many mutations, it becomes vastly different from the particle that the vaccine was created to tell your body to recognize.
“It’s kind of like seeing somebody in their infancy and then seeing them 30 years later,” said Johnson. “They look vastly different. They look a little bit like themselves, but it’s harder for you to recognize them. And that’s what your immune system is trying to do. It’s trying to kind of age it forward or mutate it forward. And that’s why we’re seeing that drop in [vaccine] effectiveness.”
Although that effectiveness may wane, booster shots are still vital.
Johnson said boosters essentially re-up your immune response, making it as fresh as it was in the beginning.
“Like whenever we play the game memory, to go back and see,” she alluded, “so it’s easier for them to recognize. So still gonna see a drop in effectiveness compared with if it were just delta or alpha variant, but it’s still far better than nothing.”
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Some Americans have voiced no need for a vaccine because they favor natural protection. Some reports have said omicron presents mild symptoms, so the idea, they argue, is to get the omicron COVID-19 variant, giving them natural immunity in lieu of vaccination.
Johnson said there’s a huge flaw in that plan: “Even though most people have mild cases of the disease, you don’t want to be the person who wins the world’s worst lottery and ends up being the person who dies of it.”
Plus, natural immunity only lasts about three to six months, she said. And with omicron’s 30 mutations, this variant has appeared to evade any kind of natural immunity.
“With the vaccines we’re given, our bodies are given this kind of blueprint to look for these certain spike proteins and whatnot. … With that changing so much between a person’s infection with the alpha variant or the delta variant to the omicron variant, it looks so different that that natural immunity may not be able to recognize it as well as a vaccine,” she explained.
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The majority of people being hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, which puts a strain on hospital systems and workers.
That, Johnson said, can trickle down to your family member who is in the hospital for something other than COVID-19.
“If you don’t have the space for people to go into hospitals for heart attacks, strokes, cancer treatment because of the COVID outbreak or surge in cases, then it could be your loved one that dies of something that could have been preventable,” she cautioned. “You can contribute to there being either a surge in cases or there being enough room in the hospital for that person to survive.”
For more from Johnson on the antiviral pill, COVID-19 safety during the holidays and the future of boosters, listen to KYW Newsradio In Depth’s “Facts Over Fear” special in the player below.