Omicron Has Created a Whole New Booster Logic
The day before I got my COVID booster shot, news of the variant we’re now calling Omicron erupted around the world.
Mere hours earlier, I’d been on the fence about boosting, as I had been for months. I’m relatively young and healthy; I’d had two doses of Pfizer in the spring. And although a boost would probably benefit me, I didn’t feel like I necessarily needed it —a stance that, comfortingly, was shared by several of the pandemic experts I spoke with regularly. Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington, had been “waiting for something to add urgency,” she told me. Müge Çevik, a medical virologist at the University of St. Andrews, in the United Kingdom, has been “looking at the data” before she got another shot. And Mónica Feliú Mójer, of the nonprofit Ciencia Puerto Rico, now boosted, but delayed the dose over concerns about global vaccine equity. While much of the world waited for their shots, I felt perfectly comfortable with . Then there was Omicron—which became the clincher in my decision to boost. This version of the virus looked worrisome, freckled with genetic changes that might
