A sub-infectious exposure will boost your immunity. It’s how top up vaccinations work. Expand out the memory B cells to make some more antibodies, recruit some more cell lines to expand the spectrum of cover.
I get pericarditis after every immune challenge now, to go with the bilateral sinusitis. It’s an interesting alarm call. Currently nursing off a cold rather than COVID, and starting to feel a little better. Symptoms respond to paracetamol and ibuprofen. I’d rather avoid a fifth bout this year since it doesn’t agree with me, and I spent months training for a decent race season.
vaccines will be updated for new strains as per other endemic respiratory viruses. These are closer to the likely emergent strains. It’s not true that older vaccines are not capable of any response. They produce a polyclonal response against multiple areas of the spike. Not every point has mutated, and any residual binding reduces the possibility of viral escape and serious sequalae. Eventually this protection will wane, but the original Wuhan strain is still being used in some mixes. It won’t stop you catching it. But it may still keep you out of hospital.
