So now that most of us have been out of the woods with COVID for awhile, do we still need vaccines?
Yes, and there's a new, revised version of it coming this fall according to the Minnesota Department of Health's Lynn Bahta.
Bahta says it's likely to become an annual recommendation, but she says there's still alot ot learn considering COVID doesn't behave like other viruses.
"It has been mutating more frequently than some other viruses," Bahta explains. "And so we really want to make sure that we're staying up to date on that so that we can minimize the people who end up so sick in the hospital or end up dying from this virus."
Bahta says it's most important for seniors, infants, and those with compromised immune systems to stay up to date on their COVID vaccines. She says the revised vaccine should be available in September or early October, and that it contains a strain of the omicron variant that sickened so many during the pandemic.
"We know that there is a more recent strain that has been circulating, that is a relative of that Omicron strain, and the vaccine that will be available includes that Omicron strain," says Bahta.
The EG.5 variant now makes up the largest proportion of new COVID-19 infections nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated, as multiple parts of the country have been reporting their first upticks of the virus in months.
Overall, as of Friday, 17.3% of COVID-19 cases nationwide were projected to be caused by EG.5, more than any other group, up from 7.5% through the first week of July.
Officials have said that symptoms and severity from these strains have been largely similar, though they acknowledge that discerning changes in the virus is becoming increasingly difficult as surveillance of the virus has slowed.
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