As the world continues to be stricken by the seemingly everlasting wave of strains of Sars-Cov-2, the vaccine began to give people hope as it was extremely effective against the original disease as well as all the other strains up until now. With sudden jump in corona cases, researchers have discovered that there is a new virus that is soon to take over as the most prevalent virus in the world. It’s been named Omicron but the question that is on a lot of people’s mind is if this new strain will be hindered by the vaccine or will it continue on its rampage across the world.

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Studies show that the answer is dependent on vaccination status. Omicron has accounted for “90% of COVID cases in areas like the Midwest” states Doctor Rochelle Walensky. The article later goes on to state that the booster vaccination shot ” increased by 25-fold people’s levels of virus-fighting antibodies.” Ultimately the amount of vulnerability you have to this new strain is directly tied to how many vaccination shot you have. But why do we even need a booster shot if the first two doses should have been enough? Well to answer this question we first need to look at how the initial two doses work. The CDC states that “Vaccines work by stimulating your immune system to produce antibodies, exactly like it would if you were exposed to the disease.”  As we learned in our AP Biology class, by giving you a small amount of sars-cov-2, the dendritic cell is able to enlist the help of plasma B cells and memory B cells by sending out T helper cells. This is known as theHumorale Immunantwort humoral response and is what gives you the ability to fight off breakthrough infections as well as help hinder the symptoms of sars-cov-2. It is able to suppress symptoms as well as prevent reinfections because once your body has fought off a little bit of the virus with the antibodies created by B helper cells your body is able to make a copy of how to deal with it in your B memory cells. The memory B cells are what give you your immunity to the virus. However over time they do run out as you were only given a small amount of the virus so this is where the booster comes into affect. The booster shot is designed so that your body is able to continue to get stimulated by the virus so that you B plasma and helper cells are able to keep memorizing and keep fighting off small (in the case of the vaccine) or big (in the case of an actual infection) Covid cases. There may continue to be more booster that you must take in order to keep your immunity, and no its not because the chip is running out of battery or they want to keep injecting you, but its due to the fact that your body simply can’t remember such a small amount of the virus for very long and if you don’t get the booster you are 25x more likely to contract Omicron than those who have all three. Ultimately the vaccine is still effective against Omicron, however Omicrons ability to be more infectious than any other variant before it is why it was able to take over the world so quickly. That being said there is a very real possibility that there will be a Omicron centered booster shot that will be significantly more effective than the past three shots against this devastating variant. Feel free to let me know how you feel about Omicron, a special new booster, or about how that Vaccine works down below.