COVID Vaccine Is Necessary To Win This Battle

“We’re all in this COVID-19 pandemic together”

To prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines are important. Vaccines are perhaps the best hope for ending the pandemic. Vaccines train our immune system using a mild form of the virus, SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. It helps restore our immune response without causing illness.

COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. Each type of vaccine works differently for COVID-19. They introduce antigens, which are unique features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, to our bodies. The antigen triggers an immune response and this response builds immune memory. It helps our body to fight off SARS-CoV-2 in the future. You may have some normal side effects after vaccination. It takes two weeks after vaccination to build protection against the virus that causes COVID-19.

How COVID-19 Vaccines Work?

There are different types of vaccines available for COVID-19. All these vaccines work in different ways to offer protection against the virus. Sometimes after vaccination, the process of building immunity can cause fever and body pain.

These symptoms are signs that the body is building immunity. After a week of vaccination, our body produces T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes. Therefore, just before or just after vaccination it is possible that a person could be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. This happens because the vaccine does not have enough time to provide protection and build immunity.

Types of Vaccines

There are four categories of vaccines - whole virus, protein subunit, viral vector, and nucleic acid (RNA and DNA). Currently, these COVID-19 vaccines are authorized and recommended to everyone. Some of them try to push the antigen into the body, others use the body’s cells to make the viral antigen.

If you have any kind of allergy to any ingredient in the vaccine, you should not get that vaccine. If you have been instructed not to get one type of COVID-19 vaccine, you can get another type. It is recommended that a second dose of the vaccination may be given up to 6 weeks (42 days) after the first dose, if necessary.

• Viral Vector Vaccine

  Viral vector-based vaccines differ from most conventional vaccines. This type of vaccine uses a safe virus (the viral vector) to deliver SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. They don’t contain any additional immune triggers. They use our body’s cells to produce a specific viral protein, which is recognized by our immune system and triggers a response.

  This response builds immune memory, so our body can fight off the virus in the future. These viral vector-based vaccines trigger a strong cellular immune response by T cells as well the B cells by producing antibodies.

  The Ebola vaccine is a viral vector vaccine that can be developed rapidly. An example of a viral vector vaccine is the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine against Ebola.

  
  

• Whole-microbe Vaccine

  Most conventional vaccines use whole viruses to trigger an immune response. There are two main approaches to the whole-microbe vaccines. They are live attenuated vaccines and inactivated vaccines. Both are tested and tried vaccination strategies. But live attenuation may cause disease in people with weak immune systems.

  • Live-attenuated vaccine - A live-attenuated vaccine uses a weakened version of the virus, which can still grow and replicate without causing illness. However, vaccines like this may not be suitable for people with compromised immune systems.

    Currently, available live attenuated viral vaccines are measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), vaccinia, varicella, zoster, yellow fever, rotavirus, and influenza (intranasal).

  
  

  • Inactivated vaccines - Inactivated vaccines carry viruses whose genetic material has been destroyed by heat, chemicals, or radiation. So they cannot replicate and infect cells, but can still trigger an immune response.

  However, it requires special laboratory facilities to grow the virus or bacterium safely. It has longer production time, and they require two or three doses to be administered. Whole-cell pertussis (wP) and Inactivated poliovirus (IPV) are inactivated vaccines.

  
  

• Subunit vaccines

  Subunit vaccines do not contain live components of the pathogen like inactivated whole-cell vaccines. They only use the specific pieces of the pathogen (a virus or bacterium) to trigger an immune response. The subunits may be proteins or sugars, which have been specially selected for restoring immune cells.

  Subunit vaccines are very safe. Subunit vaccines, protecting people from diseases such as whooping cough, tetanus, diphtheria, and meningococcal meningitis.

  Acellular pertussis (aP), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), Pneumococcal (PCV-7, PCV-10, PCV-13), Hepatitis B (HepB) are available subunit vaccines.

  Subunit vaccines can be further divided into:

  • Protein-based subunit vaccines - These vaccines contain specific isolated proteins from viral or bacterial pathogens.
  • Polysaccharide vaccines - These vaccines contain chains of sugar molecules (polysaccharides) found in the cell walls of some bacteria.
  • Conjugate subunit vaccines - These vaccines bind a polysaccharide chain to a carrier protein to try and boost the immune response.

  Only protein subunit vaccines are being developed against the COVID-19 virus.

  
  

• Nucleic Acid Vaccine

  The nucleic acid approach is a new way of developing vaccines. A nucleic acid vaccine just uses a section of genetic material that gives the instructions to our body cells for specific proteins. To make such a protein the set of instructions is delivered to either DNA or mRNA. In our cells, DNA works as a messenger, and RNA then used as the blueprint to make specific proteins. This specific protein can be recognized and responded by our immune system.

Some COVID-19 Vaccines Require More Than One Dose

Some COVID-19 vaccines require more than one shot and some need two shots to get fully vaccinated.

• One-Shot Vaccines: Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 vaccine only requires one shot. You become fully vaccinated after two weeks of your one dose.

• Two Shot Vaccines: Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines require two doses. You need two vaccine shots to get fully vaccinated.

In the case of two-shot vaccination, even after the first dose you are not fully protected from COVID. Keep taking all preventive steps until you are fully vaccinated.

Possible Side Effects After Getting a COVID-19 Vaccine

You may have some common side effects, which are normal. It indicates that your body is building protection. These side effects may affect your daily activities, but they go away in a few days. In some cases, people have no side effects.

You can experience Pain, Redness, and Swelling on the arm where you got the shot.

Common Side Effects:

• Tiredness
• Headache
• Muscle pain
• Chills
• Fever
• Nausea

Getting vaccinated against COVID-19 and taking precautions to protect yourself and others will offer the best protection from viruses causing COVID-19. COVID-19 can cause severe illness or death, so protection from COVID-19 is critically important. Vaccines work with your immune system and make your body ready to fight the virus if you are exposed.

After you’ve been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, you can start doing some activities. But, taking precautions in public places is mandatory.

Talk to our doctor about taking the COVID-19 vaccine. Now, everyone 18 years of age and older are eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccination. Learn about the different vaccines available. To take the vaccine you can visit our Post-Covid Center in Texas.

Call us at +1 (469) 545-9983 your appointments will be coordinated by our scheduling team. We offer both telehealth and in-person appointments.