COVID-19 Vaccinations: A Quick Runthrough of What Vaccines Are and How Much Progress We've Made
Hello everyone,
I know I haven't been posting a lot. I've been having a bit of writer's block plus the school year started for me, so I don't really have to write anymore. However, I will try to write some more because I do have some more ideas on what I want to write about. This blog post is going to be a quick update about where the world is regarding COVID-19 vaccines.
How do vaccines work?
Vaccines have weakened or inactive parts of a virus (antigen) that trigger an immune response within the body. The weakened version of the antigen will most probably not cause disease in the person receiving the vaccine, but it will prompt the immune system to respond much like it would have on the first reaction to the actual pathogen. Some vaccines require multiple doses given weeks or months apart. This is to allow for longer production of antibodies (cells that fight against the antigen) and development of memory cells (cells that remember the antigen so they can fight against it faster when it next invades the body).
Different types of COVID-19 vaccines
You might be reading this and thinking, there's different types of COVID-19 vaccines?! The answer is yes. Many vaccine candidates are being evaluated before any are found to be safe and effective As of December 2020, there are about 200 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 being developed. Having many different vaccines in development increases the chances that there will be one or more successful vaccines that will be public-safe.
There are three different approaches to making a vaccine: using the whole virus or bacterium, parts of the virus or bacterium that trigger the immune system, or using just the genetic material of the virus or bacterium.
Two vaccines that currently authorized to prevent COVID-19 are the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. The Pfizer vaccine was 95% successful at preventing laboratory-confirmed illness in people without previous infection of the disease. The Moderna vaccine was 94.1% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 illness in people who received two doses and had no evidence of previous infection.
As of December 28, 2020, clinical trials are in progress for three more COVID-19 vaccines in the United States: AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, Janssen's COVID-19 vaccine, and Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine.
Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines
COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. Millions of people in the United States have received COVID-19 vaccines, and these vaccines have undergone the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history. Most people have minor side effects such as pain at an injection site or a headache, but that is normal and shows that the vaccine is working. A small number of people have had a severe allergic reaction and after vaccination, but this is extremely rare. When it does happen, vaccination providers have medicine available that they can use to treat the reaction.
Below is a list of all my sources. Thank you so much for reading and stay tuned for more blog posts!
Sources:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety.html
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/Moderna.html
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/Pfizer-BioNTech.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/how-do-vaccines-work
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