There's a difference between an upstream release cadence and a distributions update interval. Ie, You don't check what the latest version of the kernel is, you

There's a difference between an upstream release cadence and a distributions update interval. Ie, You don't check what the latest version of the kernel is, you trust your distribution to package a version and apply relevant patches. This is the main purpose of a Linux distribution, to take away the stress of tracking every project it uses.