Vaccines don’t save lives, vaccination does.

Author: Lois Mason (February 8th 2021)

(Illustrations by Lois Mason & Edited by Elena Sugrue)

In 2019, the World Health Organisation declared vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 threats to global health. The global spread of SARS-CoV-2, the cause of Covid-19, increases each day, now infecting over 95 million people and claiming over 2 million lives. Three Covid-19 vaccines have been approved for use in the UK: the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine, the Moderna mRNA vaccine and the Oxford/AstraZeneca adenovirus vector vaccine. New terms, such as coronavirus and mRNA are suddenly household names, and vaccines are being developed in a fraction of the time that it has previously taken. Many people are nervous and vaccine acceptance is at the forefront of concerns.

With vaccination currently seeming like our escape plan from the pandemic, the public are faced with an important question: will you accept a vaccine against Covid-19?

To help empower the public to confidently make informed decisions about vaccination, and address their primary questions and worries around it, I consulted with Dr. Georgia Perona-Wright of Glasgow University’s Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation and the MRC – University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research. We produced an animated video to explain the basic principles of the immune system, immune memory, and vaccination, as well as highlighting the importance of herd immunity and vaccine acceptance.

UofG MVLS: Vaccines and the Immune System - video

As the video was disseminated on social media, it became clear that people had many more questions, specifically about the Covid-19 vaccines. Dr. Perona-Wright has taken time to answer these questions, aiming to ease concerns about vaccine safety and efficacy.

Will the Covid-19 vaccine make me feel unwell?

It’s quite common after vaccination to get a sore arm, a mild temperature, mild headache, or chills. These effects were reported in people who received the coronavirus vaccine in the trials, so we’re expecting some people to experience them when the vaccines are rolled out across the country. They should only last a couple of days. They are all signs of an active immune response, so they show that the vaccine is working.

Is natural immunity better than the vaccine?

The vaccines are designed to stimulate the best type of immune response to be protective. For this coronavirus, the current vaccines all stimulate an immune response against the spike protein that sticks out on the surface of the virus. Data shows that vaccinated people have higher levels of antibodies against the coronavirus than people who were naturally infected, and we hope this means protection will last longer in the vaccinated people. The vaccine is also much safer than a natural infection. You might survive a natural infection and gain some immunity, but you might become seriously unwell or die, and you may infect many other people too.

How were the Covid-19 vaccines made and approved so quickly? Are we sure they’re safe?

Normally, there are several limiting factors in making vaccines. First, drugs can be more profitable than vaccines, so there is little incentive for companies to produce vaccines. Second, only a few researchers work on each type of virus worldwide, so their pace of discovery is slow. Sometimes research was considered proprietary, so it wasn’t shared, and different researchers duplicated each other’s work. Once vaccines are ready, you need to organise trials and recruit volunteers, and you need enough virus active in communities that you can tell if your trial volunteers are protected or not.

During the pandemic, each of these steps was possible more quickly. A vaccine was urgently wanted by all countries, so the incentive for design was huge. Many researchers worldwide stopped their previous work and focused entirely on coronavirus, working round the clock. There was huge financial investment, removing the need for grant applications and funding bids before research could happen. Data was shared openly, and big, collaborative research teams were formed. Other clinical trials were halted and the infrastructure supporting trials was turned over to coronavirus vaccine efforts. Huge numbers of volunteers stepped forward. The ongoing pandemic meant that the virus was still common in the community, so vaccinated volunteers were quickly exposed and data on how effective the vaccines are could be collected quickly. The safety checks and the approval steps were all present and conducted as always, but there was less waiting time needed for enough data to be available so that these checks could be made.

Can you catch Covid-19 from the vaccines?
No. All of the vaccines announced so far contain just a small part of one protein from the coronavirus, the spike protein. None of them contain the whole virus.

Will the vaccines still work if you’ve already had COVID-19?

Yes. The vaccines enter the body through a different route than the coronavirus does, so there is no collision or interference. We think that the immune response stimulated by the vaccine could give stronger and longer-lasting protection than a natural Covid-19 infection will, so there is still an advantage to the vaccine even if you have been infected.

What do the Covid-19 vaccines contain?

The main component of any vaccine is something that will drive an immune response against the virus. In the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, this is small piece of the spike protein of the coronavirus. In the BNT/Pfizer vaccine, this is a piece of RNA that instructs your cells to manufacture a part of the spike protein.
All vaccines need a delivery system too, to get the active component into your cells. The BNT/Pfizer vaccine uses globules of lipids, or fats, to surround the RNA and to make sure it reaches the right cells. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine uses an adenovirus, a natural virus that has been engineered so that it cannot spread from cell to cell, but it can deliver the coronavirus spike protein to each cell it infects.
The last components of the vaccine are those needed to make it easy to deliver. All vaccines contain water, to keep the vaccine diluted; and small amounts of preservatives, to keep the vaccine useful during storage. Preservatives can include substances like gelatine (often found in gummy sweets), sorbitol (found in fruit juices), and some chemicals, such as formaldehyde. These preservatives are present in all our foods: formaldehyde is a natural part of apples, for example, with more per apple than in a single vaccine jab.

Further resources

The British Society for Immunology have launched their Celebrate Vaccines project. They are using the expert voice of the immunology community to strengthen public understanding of vaccines. They have released various infographics and animations which address public concerns.

Link to the webpage: www.immunology.org/celebrate-vaccines

University of Glasgow Senior Lecturer of Immunology, Dr Megan Macleod, worked with the BSI to answer Covid-19 related questions on social media.

Link to Q&A: https://www.immunology.org/coronavirus/connect-coronavirus-public-engagement-resources/covid-19-vaccine-qa

Mesh is a global community engagement network which has recently conducted a study focused on Engagement with Vaccines. It discusses the importance of trust, collaboration and listening and supporting the public. Useful videos support the text. Further resources are linked at the end of the article.

Link to study: https://mesh.tghn.org/themes/engagement-vaccine-studies/