[Info-vax] Vaccines, COVID-19 (was: Re: Just how old are we?)

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2021-03-04 17:42:19 +0000, Dave Froble said:

> Not that this is the best venue for a biology lesson, but I'm curious, 
> what exactly are you saying?
> 
> I've never really thought about it, I just figured that training the 
> immune system to fight off specific diseases when incurred is 
> "vaccination".  Isn't that what the various covid-19 "vaccinations" do?

All of what are being offered for CoV-19 are vaccines.

There are different types of vaccines, and long have been different types.

All vaccines are intended to provoke an immune response.

An intro to available vaccine types: https://www.vaccines.gov/basics/types

mRNA has been known and studied for many years.

In most organisms, mRNA causes the encoded proteins to be created.

An mRNA vaccine is something that only just became practical to create 
and to mass-produce.

At least two of the vaccines use mRNA encoding that causes cells to 
first construct a little-varying and non-infectious part of CoV-19 
known as the "spike" protein.

The presence of the "spike" protein is then noticed by and provokes an 
immune system response.

The immune response then reduces the severity of a subsequent CoV-19 
infection, as the CoV-19 "spike" protein is recognized by the immunized 
immune system.

Or in other words, a vaccination.

There's at least one anti-malarial saRNA vaccine—which is akin to mRNA, 
but that it also causes self-amplifies and causes mRNA to be created—in 
development. And then there's CRISPR, but I digress.

TL;DR: get a COVID-19 vaccination. Whatever is available. COVID-19 
infection and spread is not a good alternative.


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