What you need to know about the new Covid boosters

Thursday, September 14, 2023:

Hi readers, 

After a short break, I’m back! It’s Future Perfect fellow Rachel sharing the biggest news of today (starting with a story of my own):

Up first: Should you get the newest Covid shot?

In other news: Elon Musk’s biography, aliens, and union strikes. 

The CDC wants you to get the newest Covid shot 

Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

Tuesday, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) committee recommended everyone 6 months or older receive the newest Covid-19 shot. The subvariant EG.5 (part of the branch targeted by the new booster) causes an estimated 21.5 percent of current cases. Though new subvariants are circulating, the vaccine should protect against the most prevalent strains of the moment.

The lowdown: Originally, the CDC limited who it recommended receive multiple boosters. Now, with a new formulation of the shots available, the CDC says essentially everyone should get one. 

• The new recommendation comes as Covid-related hospitalization rates are on the rise. The latest data from the CDC shows an 8.7 percent spike in Covid hospitalizations. 

• Updated Covid-19 boosters are needed for two fundamental reasons: The virus is continually evolving and our immunity wanes over time. Since 2020, Covid-19 has evolved and mutated into over three dozen various strains and variants, some of which possess characteristics that help them evade our immune system. Vaccines, like natural infections, prompt the body to produce virus-fighting antibodies, but they don’t stay in our bodies forever (hence the need for revaccination).  

• Despite the CDC’s recent recommendations, not all experts believe a booster is necessary for everyone every year. A few months after vaccination, antibodies begin to wane, but T-cells and B-cells — other immune system cells — have long memories, and protect against severe disease. For low-risk people who’ve been vaccinated with any formulation of the vaccine, protection against severe disease provided by these T-cells doesn’t seem to wane over time or as the virus evolves into new variants.

The stakes: The CDC’s recommendation that everyone should get the Covid booster, regardless of their prior vaccination status, prompts a question: Should we start expecting yearly reformulations like we see with the flu shot? 

Both Covid and the flu can now be called endemic diseases, which means new cases will always occur and the culture around the shots should become quite similar (meaning wherever you’re asked if you want a flu vaccine — at a pharmacy or a student health center, for example — you’ll also be asked if you want a Covid shot). 

Still, flu vaccines, which are recommended for pretty much everyone, every year, regardless of their prior vaccination history, have a much higher acceptance rate than Covid shots. In the 2022 flu season over half of American children received a flu shot and nearly half of US adults received one. While 69.5 percent of the US population completed their initial series of Covid-19 shots, only 17 percent received the bivalent booster released last year. 

“We should start viewing this as just this annual booster that we’re going to need, very much like the flu vaccine itself,” Thomas Duszynski, an epidemiologist with Indiana University’s Fairbanks School of Public Health, told me of Covid shots. “We need those vaccines to protect us.”

Read my explainer here.

The Elon Musk biography

Nathan Howard/Getty Images

Earlier this week the highly anticipated biography Elon Musk debuted. Author Walter Isaacson (who has written biographies of Steve Jobs, Henry Kissinger, and Leonardo da Vinci) shadowed Musk for two years and interviewed many of those closest to Musk to introduce readers to the richest man in the world. 

• Isaacson portrays Musk as obsessive and intense. And as someone who has no empathy. In her review of the biography, senior culture correspondent Constance Grady writes that for Isaacson, Musk’s lack of empathy is foundational to his character, a “part of that unchangeable nature that was created by the mingled forces of Musk’s traumatic childhood and his neurodivergence.” [Vox]

• The biography reveals that Musk’s work-horse nature (something he also demands of his staff) results in physical ailments. Isaacson reports that following periods of extreme business stress Musk would struggle to sleep, vomit, and endure intense stomach pains. [Insider]

• Isaacson agreed to write the biography under two conditions. The author told Musk, “I don’t just want a few interviews. I want to spend two years at your side, at all times, at all meetings — nothing excluded, nothing off-limits. And to watch you in action rather than give you a set of questions. Secondly, I want you to have no control over the book.” Musk agreed, and the 688-page account of his life and work was made. [Los Angeles Times]

Join Unexplainable in NYC!

Vox’s award-winning science podcast is hosting a live night of fun and learning with special guest comedian and writer Wyatt Cenac on Thursday, September 21. 

• Researchers presented “evidence” of extraterrestrial life to Mexico’s Congress. The testimony follows similar claims made to the US Congress by a former Air Force intelligence officer. Among the proof presented was two bodies of “aliens” (which were shown to be merely dolls). [ABC News]
  
  

• Employees at General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis will strike if their companies fail to reach a labor deal with the United Auto Workers union by the end of today. If a deal isn’t reached, 145,000 members of the UAW could strike, costing the automotive industry billions (in a 2019 strike General Motors lost $2.9 billion). [CNN]
  
  

• Wednesday a federal judge declared Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) unlawful. While the judge ruled DACA unlawful, he did not grant another request to essentially deport beneficiaries of the program, which creates a legal pathway for immigrants brought to the US as children to remain in the States. The Biden administration will likely appeal the ruling against the program. [CBS]
  
  

• Polysubstance overdoses are driving the “fourth wave” of the American opioid crisis. The first wave of the crisis, driven by prescription opioids, began in the early 2000s. The second wave was marked by the rise in heroin use in 2010, and the third, driven by fentanyl, began in 2013. This wave is marked by the use of opioids mixed with stimulants, such as cocaine and meth. [NPR]

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Today’s crossword

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