On National Football League playoff games, Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs has been promoting vaccines for new COVID “variants,” to be conveniently taken “two things at once,” with the annual flu shot. Before they follow Kelce’s advice, fans have a few things to consider.

The commercial does not name the new variants, the science behind them, or provide any information on the new vaccines. As fans might recall, Pfizer once wanted 75 years to reveal safety data on their vaccines, a demand supported by the FDA before being overturned by a federal judge. Nothing about that in the Kelce commercial, part of a campaign gearing up last year and stretching back all the way to early 2020.

“Variants happen,” the CDC explains, and the COVID virus “has many variants.” The variants happen “when viruses infect cells and begin to reproduce, and some of the resulting copies contain errors.” The CDC is “constantly tracking their emergence” through genomic surveillance with “partners in the United States and around the world.”

Nearly all the variants “represent relatively small changes compared with previous variants.” The CDC and “other agencies” monitor for impacts but “most of the time, new variants make little to no impact.” Even so, it’s important to “protect yourself and others,” by “staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccines, improving ventilation, and staying home when you’re sick.” (emphases added)

According to the CDC the latest variant is JN.1, “closely related to the variant........

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