COVID-19 vaccine is unique

Cooper Dennis

COVID-19 was and is a virus that shocked and debilitated the world. Governments and societies are still recovering from quarantine, and we are still adjusting back to day-to-day living. 

Vaccines have been a large advancement in technology since their creation in 1798. Most vaccines will administer a weakened version of the pathogen into your system, so your body learns how to fight it when you actually get infected. 

The COVID vaccine however, is different. The vaccine uses an interesting way of immunization, as it uses something called mRNA, or messenger RNA, to vaccinate whoever is getting the vaccine. 

The vaccine uses engineered mRNA to instruct your cells how to make the protein on the outside of the virus. Those structures of proteins will then form on your cells and create antibodies unique to the virus. So when you get infected with COVID, you have antibodies specifically designed to fight off the illness. 

Now there are other vaccines for COVID-19, but they all serve the same purpose: to give your cells instructions on how to make the protein. But they do it in different ways. 

Take the Vector vaccine for instance, it vaccinates against COVID by taking genetic material from the virus and putting it into a modified version of a different virus. That modified virus is then injected into your body, and your cells start to recognize what properties the virus displays. They then develop countermeasures, such as the protein structures on the outside of your cells. 

Vaccines work in different ways, but they all have a similar purpose, to protect your body from invaders. The COVID vaccine is, and will always be, a big step forward in the pharmaceutical industry.