Okay so let's talk about a vaccine question I have been seeing a lot!

"Can you get COVID from the vaccine?" Or relatedly, "Can you spread COVID from the vaccine?"

The short answer to both of those is "Nope."

Seriously. You cannot get COVID from the vaccines.

The longer answer requires talking about some biology and history.

History: a lot of folks might remember getting an oral polio vaccine (OPV). Either a sugar cube, or a drink. OPV is often used in mass vaccination campaigns, and is still the usual vaccine in many places.

(In the US kids usually get inactivated polio vaccine, IPV. The virus in that is dead. There are certain cases where OPV is a better choice, but IPV is the US standard at this point.)

Anyway, folks may remember some people getting polio from OPV, which is a thing that can happen. (About 3 in 1,000,000 people get polio from OPV. Compare that to 5,000 in 1,000,000 who get polio without vaccines. Yeah. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine)

Or they may remember being told to be careful with diaper changes with kids who got OPV, because polio can be spread via stool.

And the reason those things are true for oral polio vaccine is because of how that vaccine works.

Oral polio vaccine uses what we call "live attenuated virus." It is live polio virus, but we weakened it so it is way, WAY less likely to make you sick.

(here is more about why we do that, and a list of current live attenuated vaccines. You've probably gotten some! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuated_vaccine)

IN CONTRAST, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that just got an emergency use authorization in the US doesn't use the SARS-CoV-2 virus at all. For real!

Very simply, that vaccine sends a set of instructions to your body to make copies of what's called the "spike" of the virus. It's a bit that sits on the outside of the virus like a unicorn horn, or a spike on a morningstar. Okay?

The spike is a part of the coronavirus, but it is only a part. And it isn't the part of the virus that replicates.

And like I said, the vaccine doesn't even have the spike, it has instructions for the spike.

The Moderna vaccine, and a number of others, work on the same idea. (The differences are basically in how the vaccine gets the instructions to your body without your body going THE FUCK IS THIS and ejecting it before it can help.)

Some of the vaccines in development are using inactivated SARS-CoV-2. In other words, we kill the virus dead before it is put in to the vaccine.

(For your rabbit holing pleasure, here is a list of vaccines in development and what tech they are using. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccine

Yr frand Wench used to work with modified adenovirus back in the day.)

Anyway. Look at the ones that have been authorized for use, and the ones in trials.

None of them uses live coronavirus. You can't get COVID from them. You just can't. The part that makes the virus got BRRRRR and infect you just isn't there.