Thread by @Barton_options

Do we need a booster shot of COVID vaccine every year for the rest of our life?

Probably not. (it is physically impossible to have 4-year data for a virus emerged 1.5 year ago, but I can make an educated guess).

A few considerations:

Vaccines on a 0-1-6 month schedule in theory generate much longer-lasting immunity than the same one on 0-1 month schedule.

Extrapolating from common-cold beta-coronaviruses, it takes 2 years for them to genetically drift into immune escape.

So it really boils down to whether people care about getting mildly sick from COVID in the future.

If they don't care and they don't interact with large number of people everyday, *maybe* an updated shot once every 4-6 years. (i know people who never get TDAP booster ever)

For germaphobes, like yours truly, maybe one updated shot every 2 years, because we won't be short of variants in the next 2-3 years.

and that's because volunteering for serving as a human petri-dish to culture new COVID variants seems to be quite trendy right now. /s

Clarification here: I am using the definition of "being mildly sick" from the vaccine clinical trial that I participated.

For them (also PFE and MRNA), a mild sickness = you were sick enough to see a doctor, but did not use ER or got hospitalized.

so having a 102F (38.9C) fever for 4 days is still considered being *mildly* sick, as long as one does not panic and goes to an ER.