Read on Twitter
The mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) are kind of brilliant at a science level. I’ve had a few people in my real non-Twitter life ask me to explain how it works so I’m going to try my best here in this thread while I’m waiting for a patient to show.
The first thing to know is how your immune system works. Basically, your immune cells attack anything foreign to your body. If it sees a protein or a virus or a bacteria or anything that it doesn’t recognize, it launches an attack.
If it’s fighting off a virus, for example, it takes time to build up a full attack. It’s got to figure out what part of the virus to attack & ramp up production of what it needs to attack those parts. That can take a few days. Meanwhile the virus is replicating and expanding.
Once it fights off the virus, though, it remembers it. You’ve got memory cells in your immune system and if you run into that virus again, your memory cells say “I’ve seen this asshole before”. Your body uses it’s past experience to demolish the virus before it can make you sick.
So, with that in mind, we return to the vaccine. Scientists looked at the COVID virus and saw a protein on the outside of the virus that looked like a good candidate to launch an immune attack against.
That protein, by the way, is an important one for the virus. It uses that protein to get into your cells. That protein makes the virus more infectious. In short, that protein makes the virus more of an asshole.
Now COVID has DNA in it that codes for all of its parts. So scientists looked at the entire DNA sequence of virus and found the sequence of DNA that is the blueprints for that protein. The asshole protein.
Side note: DNA is the blueprint to make things in a cell. Cells take the DNA and transcribe it into RNA. The RNA is the instructions that tell the cell what to make. mRNA (literally messenger-RNA) literally just gives instructions to the cell to make something.
So scientists took the blueprint for the asshole protein on COVID and made an mRNA version of it. Literally just the instructions on how to make that protein.
These instructions “are” the vaccine.
Let me explain.
These instructions “are” the vaccine.
Let me explain.
The vaccine contains no actual part of the virus. It has only the instructions on how to make the asshole protein. So, you can’t get infected with COVID from the vaccine. You just get these instructions.
Your cells see these instructions and say “sure, I’ll make this”. So your cells make a bunch of the asshole protein.
You immune system sees this new protein you’re producing and immediately says “what... the fuck... is this?” And it starts attacking the protein.
You immune system sees this new protein you’re producing and immediately says “what... the fuck... is this?” And it starts attacking the protein.
Remember it hasn’t seen this protein before. It takes awhile to ramp up production. Then it launches an all out war against the asshole protein. The fevers, chills, muscle soreness, etc you might get as vaccine side effects is your body bombing the hell out of the asshole protein
So you destroy the asshole protein (which in and of itself can’t infect you, it’s just a protein, not the virus).
Now here’s the important part. Your memory cells ‘remember’ the asshole protein. They remember exactly how to destroy it.
Now here’s the important part. Your memory cells ‘remember’ the asshole protein. They remember exactly how to destroy it.
By the way, your body breaks down the mRNA instructions that you got with the vaccine pretty quickly too. That’s normal. You don’t need a bunch of instructions hanging around forever. Your body breaks those down and gets rid of them.
So you’ve broken down the mRNA instructions. You’ve destroyed asshole proteins. Everything from the vaccine is gone.
Except for those memory cells who remember that protein very well.
Except for those memory cells who remember that protein very well.
So then, a COVID virus enters your body. Your body has never seen the virus before.
BUT it’s seen that protein that’s on the outside of the virus. Your memory cells say “you’ve got to be kidding me, THIS asshole again? Get the fuck out of here!”
BUT it’s seen that protein that’s on the outside of the virus. Your memory cells say “you’ve got to be kidding me, THIS asshole again? Get the fuck out of here!”
Your body’s own ‘natural immune system’ quickly and efficiently launches an all out war, using the template it has from when it destroyed the asshole protein last time. It destroys the virus before it can take hold, replicate, and make you sick.
Congratulations! Now, you’re immune to COVID! You’ve got the blueprints to defeat it as soon as it enters your body.
What if the virus mutates so it doesn’t produce the asshole protein any more? Well, since it uses the asshole protein to get into your cells, if it mutates away from the asshole protein, it’ll probably also be less infectious. That’s what makes the vaccine low-key brilliant.
This is correct. Sorry, I got caught up wanting to explain our own DNA-RNA process and went on autopilot. COVID is an RNA genome meaning it just uses the RNA directly instead of transcribing from DNA. The rest is the same. https://twitter.com/ryvy/status/1339640855381102593
We don’t know for sure. We have a very long memory for some viruses and shorter for others. We’ll have to see for this one. Sometimes we make up for a shorter memory with a “booster” vaccine some ways down the road. Like a little reminder. https://twitter.com/wowzers93/status/1339640917205127168
Probably not. Most of the viral load comes from replicating in your body, not exposure. But remember the vaccine is 95% effective, not 100%. A lot of that depends on how robust your own immune response is to the protein and how effective your memory cells are towards it. https://twitter.com/toxicnacho/status/1339641511445553153
Reinfection from a virus you’ve had before could be because the virus mutated (in which case it’s technically a different virus) or because your ‘memory’ or that virus wasn’t as strong as you’d like. https://twitter.com/gillyballs/status/1339643571104669697
I saw this awhile back and it’s, of course, brilliant. I wanted to break it down to step more basic than this and throw in a few more swears but Rob’s video here is fantastic. https://twitter.com/scientistswanda/status/1335988328362090500
Not by any way I can see. Your immune system, in all this, is working exactly the way it’s supposed to work. It attacks the foreign object and then remembers it for later. Your immune system at no point is altered. It’s out there doing it’s thing. https://twitter.com/wrigley_n8/status/1339688356142170112
Hey everyone, there’s a lot of great questions that people have attached to this thread and I’m trying my best to answer them, but there’s a lot. Also, some are beyond my knowledge.
You immunology / ID nerds out there, feel free to jump in in the replies.
You immunology / ID nerds out there, feel free to jump in in the replies.
There’s lots of questions about allergies in the thread. Here’s the best thread I’ve seen on it so far.
tldr; don’t be TOO worried about allergies. https://twitter.com/kimberlyblumen1/status/1336819108688621568
tldr; don’t be TOO worried about allergies. https://twitter.com/kimberlyblumen1/status/1336819108688621568
Friends, I’m very happy people found this useful. Two things.
1) If you have specific questions about whether the virus is okay for ‘you’ b/c your other conditions, (often autoimmune) please talk about it with your doc. That’s better than info from random me who doesn’t know you.
1) If you have specific questions about whether the virus is okay for ‘you’ b/c your other conditions, (often autoimmune) please talk about it with your doc. That’s better than info from random me who doesn’t know you.
