Submitted by number1dork t3_120rixo in askscience
kurai_tori t1_jdjboh1 wrote
Reply to comment by PHealthy in What happened to the old COVID variants, like Delta? Could they come back? by number1dork
This is why the latest booster is based on the mRNA of two variants. Both to increase your immunity to an increased number of variants (there is some cross protection from related variants, depends on how similar the spike protein/antigen is to the original that the antibodies previously produced (e.g. via vaccination).) as well as to increase your "standing army" of antibodies (specific antibodies levels drop after a while, leaving memory cells that will "activate" when reexposed to the Covid antigen (variant-specfic spike protein). Problem is the memory cell response might be too slow, hence the need for boosters of the same variant.
Flu shots are a good example of this and we will likely be moving to a similar approach with COVID.
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