The Covid-19 vaccine process.

Like vaccine, we are used to seeing these vaccines will be injected into the upper
muscle of your arm, but unlike typical vaccines which introduce inactive or
weakened forms of a virus, these will release genetic material called messenger
RNA. In a regular cell of your body, you have DNA inside of the nucleus and this
DNA stores all the information and instructions important to the functioning of your
cells your body and ultimately makes you, you. Inside your cell is machinery that
reads through your DNA and transcribes it into mRNA which then leaves the
nucleus and goes into your cytoplasm, and it is here that the ribosomes and your
cells reads the RNA and depending on the specific code to build a series of amino
acids which fold in on themselves to make proteins which keep you alive and
functioning. This process is known as translation. In fact, it is this process that the
viruses take advantage of in the first place. They insert their own genetic
information into you and then your cell machinery unwittingly starts taking that
information and building proteins to help create more viruses.

The mRNA that is being injected into you from the vaccine also carries genetic
instructions but, in this case, it is only coding for one small part of the virus instead
of the whole thing. The SARS COV-2 spikes protein on its own is harmless that the
vaccine mRNA codes for. The mRNA makes its way into the cytoplasm of your
cells where the ribosomes read the information and start to create the spiked
proteins. Once the protein is made, it goes to the cell membrane and then your cell
breaks down and destroys the injected mRNA instructions. A tiny fragment of viral
spike gives your immune system, a preview of the virus looks like without causing
disease. Suddenly your antibodies will notice it and triggers and immune response
to recognize and prepare your body for the real thing without ever having to meet
the actual virus itself. Your immune system essentially gets a head start by
creating powerful antibodies that can neutralize and kill the real virus. And this
antibody memory is stored in your B cells so that if you are ever infected in the
future with the SARS COV-2 virus, your body now has the upper hand. This is
known as an adaptive immune response, your body has already seen these spike
proteins before and therefore it already knows what to do. Essentially, these mRNA
vaccines allow your body to protect itself from a future infection without ever having
to risk the consequences of getting the COVID-19.
 The vaccines we are used to see, and the Covid-19 vaccines follow the same
process, they both can be injected into the upper part of our arm muscle, but unlike
typical vaccines the latter release genetic material called messenger RNA. The
mRNA that is being injected into you from the vaccine carries genetic instructions,
coding for one small part of the virus [the SARS COV-2 spike protein]. The mRNA
makes its way into the cytoplasm of your cells where the ribosomes read the
information and start to create the spiked proteins. Once the protein is made, it
goes to the cell membrane and then your cell breaks down and destroys the
injected mRNA instructions. A tiny fragment of viral spike gives your immune
system, a preview of the virus looks like without causing disease. Suddenly your
antibodies will notice it and triggers and immune response to recognize and
prepare your body for the real thing without ever having to meet the actual virus
itself. Your immune system essentially gets a head start by creating powerful
antibodies that can neutralize and kill the real virus. And this antibody memory is
stored in your B cells so that if you are ever infected in the future with the SARS
COV-2 virus, your body now has the upper hand. This is known as an adaptive
immune response; your body has already seen these spike proteins before and
therefore it already knows what to do. Essentially, these mRNA vaccines allow
your body to protect itself from a future infection without ever having to risk the
consequences of getting the COVID-19 (Moffit & Brown, 2020). The development
of the Covid-19 vaccine demands the same quality, safety, and efficacy
requirements in the scientific community as a normal vaccine does.

One of the main standards to develop the covid-19 vaccine is quality. Firstly,
as Dellepiane, Griffiths & Milstien (2000, p. 1) claimed, new technologies to
produce vaccines have emerged recently with a much better characterization of the
product [quality], so that scientists can detect potential risks and understand the
way viruses behave when they enter the body. Secondly, not only the vaccine
techonology, but also the vaccine production methods have changed and become
better through the past of time to develop high quality vaccines (Josefsberg &
Buckland, 2012, p.1). Lastly, Dellepiane, Griffiths & Milstien (2000, p.2) consider
that the quality control of vaccines includes control of the starting materials, control
of the production process and control of the final product.

Apart from quality, the process of the vaccine development requires safety.
According to the European Medicines Agency (2020): “the European Union has a
safety monitoring system to ensures measures for:

 Minimizing risks;
 reporting suspected side effects;
 conducting studies after marketing;
  detecting any potential adverse effects”.

On the other hand, the EMA (2020, par. 2) mention that the vaccines are tested in
volunteers to prove its work disease prevention and estimate their safety and
protective efficacy. As a matter of fact, Chen & Hibbs (1998, par. 1) state that no
vaccine is highly accurate, it means that there might be some errors related to
safety and effectiveness. This leads people to experience side effects and an
unresponsive immunologic system to a vaccine, making them susceptible to virus
threats.

Lastly, efficacy is another important standard to develop a vaccine. Firstly,

genetic-modified animal models are used to determine vaccine efficacy, this
includes ACE2-transgenic mice, hamsters, ferrets and non-human primates (Le,
Andreadakis, Kumar, Román, Tollefsen, Saville & Mayhew, 2020, p. 306).
Secondly, the effectiveness depends on useful techniques and proper
administration of the vaccine to test the potency and the body response to it
(Orenstein, Bernier, Dondero, Hinman, Marks, Bart & Sirotkin, 1985, p. 1055).
Lastly, Lipsitch & Dean (2020) assert that:

Vaccines provide direct protection by reducing susceptibility to disease or infection.

Vaccines provide indirect protection by reducing the number of people infected in a
population or their infectiousness. These vaccine effects can be assessed in
clinical trials by measuring the efficacy to prevent disease, to prevent infection, and
to reduce infectiousness, as well as in studies to assess indirect effects of the
vaccine. (p. 764)

In brief, the process to develop the Covid-19 vaccine requires quality, which
involves cutting-edge technology methods to produce the vaccine and the control
of this process. It also implicates safety to detect the vaccine side effects and
minimize its risks. Finally, this process demands efficacy as well, which implies
laboratory experimentation with transgenic animals in order to prevent infection
and subsequent illness. It is clear that the covid-19 vaccine was developed in short
time. For many people, the vaccine process is questionable due to the fact that a
vaccine requires up to 10 years to produce cells which react to different virus and
bacteria creating immunization, and the different myths that undermine its
credibility. To acknowledge the vaccine effectiveness, we must consider the
complex process it has gone through in order to certify it. Our future depends on it.