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'In response to a rather complicated question from a reader . . . 

I'm not a real doctor, I'm a doctor of philosophy, and I'm not an expert on the technical ins and outs of Covid-19 mutations and immunity thereto. But the message you need to hear is very simple: the boosters out there right now, today, are very effective at preventing severe disease, even with the newest mutants. So if you don't want to go to the hospital and you don't want to die, get the shot.

They aren't as effective at preventing infection against new variants, and hence less effective at preventing transmission, but the big problem there is that hardly anybody is getting them. The way epidemics work is that if an infected person, on average, infects more than one other person, the epidemic grows; if that number is less than one, it dies out. And obviously, the rate of spread and severity of the epidemic depends on the size of the number. R=1.1 is a lot better than R=5 or 6. So if you want to protect your community, family and friends, get the shot.

Obviously, if we do get a major rise in cases, especially requiring hospitalization, that's bad and even though people are sick of it, we will really need to think about going back to non-pharmaceutical mitigation, in other words wear a mask in crowded indoor spaces if you can't avoid them entirely. But if you'd like to try to avoid that, get the shot.

That is all.