According to polls, up to half of Americans will answer “no” to that question. There are a variety of reasons for this. Fear of the unknown is a common problem. It is also impossible to make an informed decision about something that is not understood. Maybe we can get a little bit of a handle on that here in a few words. Let’s get to know this vaccine.
First of all, we are actually talking about more than one vaccine. The first vaccine against COVID-19 to be approved by the FDA was the Pfizer vaccine. Close on its heels, and likely to be approved any day now is the Moderna vaccine, which was discussed in the July MPDN article “Some good news about a promising COVID-19 vaccine.”
Pfizer and Moderna are both messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. These vaccines use the machinery of the cell to manufacture proteins that the body can then recognize as foreign. That is important, because this is how the immune system works (and using the immune system is how you fight off viruses). Under normal circumstances, if you are infected by a virus, for instance a cold virus, the virus will have proteins on its outer surface which are different from normal proteins in the human body. Our immune system monitors the body for unusual proteins. When these are found and recognized as foreign, the body targets and destroys the virus. One way to imagine this might be to think of a hospital. The staff all wear a hospital ID. A person with the wrong ID would be recognized by security as someone who doesn’t belong. Hopefully, they won’t be destroyed, but you get the picture, right?
How do RNA vaccines work?
In the body every living cell contains DNA, the genetic code. This genetic library contains all the information needed to make you, to repair injuries, to make proteins, and so on. It works like this: DNA is a template. Your cell can use small sections of your DNA to make mRNA. That mRNA leaves the nucleus where the DNA is located to be used in machinery within the cell called a ribosome to make proteins. I know, it sounds complicated, but stick with me. Usually proteins serve some function in the body, for example building muscle cells. So, again, DNA makes mRNA, which makes proteins, which build things like muscles, or maybe tiny proteins on the surfaces of things.
Some very clever people have taken a look at the virus that causes COVID-19 and found that when we have an immune response to this virus we make a lot of antibodies against something called the spike protein. The spike protein is the business end of the virus, and if it is targeted the virus will likely be destroyed.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines contain mRNA that will be used by machinery of the cell to produce a molecule that looks like the spike protein. After doing this, the mRNA will degrade. To those that keep saying it will change your DNA, no, it will not do anything to your DNA-wrong direction! Cells will then kick the new foreign protein made from mRNA out, and the immune system will see this foreign protein and develop antibodies against it. The great thing about the immune system is that it tends to remember foreign invaders. That is immunity. While we are not sure how long this memory will last for this particular invader, most of us believe vaccination will stop this pandemic if enough people take it. That is why we need you.
Some people are worried about potential side effects. Fair enough, but so far the data doesn’t show a lot of reason for concern. In studies some people experienced flulike symptoms following injection of the vaccine. Flulike symptoms actually mean the immune system is working, not that the person was infected-as I have heard people guess. Those people couldn’t be infected by the vaccines, because no virus was injected.
Amid the billions of people vaccinated over the next several months we might wind up having a relatively few people with serious side effects. If you give every person on Earth an aspirin the same thing will happen. That level of risk is not a good reason to skip the vaccine. Think of the odds in relation to you. The overall risk associated with receiving the vaccine has so far been very low (usually only minor symptoms among a minority of patients); whereas the risk of serious illness from COVID-19 is about 20%, and death from COVID-19 is somewhere around 2-3% for the general population (much higher for older and chronically ill individuals). Generally, your odds are much better with the vaccine than without.
Finally, be careful where you get your information about this. Talking heads, politicians, some commenters on Facebook, and other uninformed sources are not where you should be getting medical advice. Defer to an expert. Talk to your doctor, check with the Maine CDC (or listen to the updates). And, get in line for a vaccine. This is how we are going to defeat COVID-19.
