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> Many vaccines require boosters. There is no other vaccine routinely administered to large numbers of people that requires a booster every 6-12 months in the

> Many vaccines require boosters. There is no other vaccine routinely administered to large numbers of people that requires a booster every 6-12 months in the general population. Of the vaccines that require ongoing boosters in the general population, Tdap is probably the most common, and the booster is every 10 years. The "flu shot" is not an annual booster. It is a different reformulated vaccine every year that, in the case of the trivalent vaccines, targets the 3 strains of influenza that are predicted to be most prevalent in the coming flu season.

resoluteteeth 5y ago
It's true that they pick different strains each year but we would still need annual flu shots if that wasn't the case because efficacy goes down by almost 10% each month: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/73/4/726/6104243 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/73/4/726/6104243
- LurkingPenguin 5y ago
  No, you wouldn't. If influenza viruses didn't mutate the way they do, you'd inevitably get infected (whether vaccinated or not) and you would have natural immunity such that the benefit of getting vaccinated every year would be miniscule unless you were in a high-risk category. So in this scenario, an annual "flu shot" wouldn't be a thing for the general population.
  - resoluteteeth 5y ago
    That's true in the sense that if you don't want to prevent people from getting influenza you don't have to give them a vaccine. Otherwise, even if natural immunity to influenza lasts for a lifetime, most people don't get influenza very often (however people often confuse colds and influenza and don't realize this), so merely having a large existing number of strains would make it incredibly difficult to get natural immunity to all of them even if it wasn't continuing to mutate. If you don't want people to be able to get influenza 10 times in their lifetime you would still have to give flu shots, and since their effectiveness decreases rapidly you would have to do this every year. And that's assuming that natural immunity really lasts longer than flu shots. Anyway that whole point is somewhat irrelevant to your original point that I was responding to that no other vaccines require boosters but it is clear based on your response that you are essentially engaging in circular reasoning (you don't think that boosters are required because no other vaccines require boosters, therefore flu vaccines are not boosters, therefore no other vaccines require boosters).

resoluteteeth 5y ago

It's true that they pick different strains each year but we would still need annual flu shots if that wasn't the case because efficacy goes down by almost 10% each month: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/73/4/726/6104243 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/73/4/726/6104243

LurkingPenguin 5y ago
No, you wouldn't. If influenza viruses didn't mutate the way they do, you'd inevitably get infected (whether vaccinated or not) and you would have natural immunity such that the benefit of getting vaccinated every year would be miniscule unless you were in a high-risk category. So in this scenario, an annual "flu shot" wouldn't be a thing for the general population.
- resoluteteeth 5y ago
  That's true in the sense that if you don't want to prevent people from getting influenza you don't have to give them a vaccine. Otherwise, even if natural immunity to influenza lasts for a lifetime, most people don't get influenza very often (however people often confuse colds and influenza and don't realize this), so merely having a large existing number of strains would make it incredibly difficult to get natural immunity to all of them even if it wasn't continuing to mutate. If you don't want people to be able to get influenza 10 times in their lifetime you would still have to give flu shots, and since their effectiveness decreases rapidly you would have to do this every year. And that's assuming that natural immunity really lasts longer than flu shots. Anyway that whole point is somewhat irrelevant to your original point that I was responding to that no other vaccines require boosters but it is clear based on your response that you are essentially engaging in circular reasoning (you don't think that boosters are required because no other vaccines require boosters, therefore flu vaccines are not boosters, therefore no other vaccines require boosters).