The new Covid-19 vaccines; a guide for my sister

Virginia Walker | Dec 09, 2020

My sister has reservations about the new RNA vaccine produced by Pfizer and Moderna that will likely be approved for Canadians very soon. She heard that the vaccine has to be kept in “super cold freezers” and her Facebook friends are concerned that if they roll up their sleeves, they might end up with frostbite. I don’t want my sister worrying needlessly and you shouldn’t either.

Even though I am not an expert on vaccines- I am a geneticist- I hope I can help dispel any laughable Facebook “wisdom”. It is true that these vaccines against the virus Covid-19 are new, and the virologists, a team consisting of a Hungarian wife and husband and an American, could win a Nobel Prize for this important discovery. Traditional vaccines against viruses work by injecting weakened virus or tiny bits of virus protein. Immediately, your immune system is alerted, and your blood cells make antibodies (little Y-shaped proteins) that will stick to any of these virus proteins. If you later come in contact with a foreign invader, the antibodies you made in response to the vaccine will now stick on to the virus like a lit-up neon sign that says to your white blood cells, “kill this enemy”. You then don’t get sick.

The Covid-19 virus looks like a very tiny orange with cloves stuck in it. The traditional-type vaccines are made up of bits of the cloves (called the spike proteins). Such vaccines can be about 65% effective. The remarkable thing about the RNA vaccines is that they don’t contain weakened virus or bits of proteins, but rather the instructions to make the protein bits. The instructions are in messenger RNA (mRNA). The clever thing about these new vaccines is that the mRNA can amplify the result by giving instructions to your own cells to make the protein bits. Lots of those neon sign antibodies can be made by your immune system. As a result, there will be more than enough to alert your defensive blood cells to any Covid-19 virus that gets in your body, with the vaccine more than 90% effective. All that is very good news. However, mRNA is a fragile, fine instruction thread that can easily be destroyed. To prevent that from happening, the mRNA in the vaccine must be wrapped in tiny nano-sized fatty packages and has to be kept at very low temperatures, as low as minus 70 °C, colder than Antarctica. But every university already has freezers that are this cold, and it can be transported on dry ice (sometimes used to make fog at rock concerts).

The other good news for my sister and her friends is that the vaccine only needs to be kept cold before use. The vaccine warms up when being loaded into the syringe and feels like any other vaccine. I hope that while being jabbed, she will think about the innovation and dedication this new science represents. As well, I hope that she is also looking forward to a big family party when we all get vaccinated and the pandemic is over because I haven’t seen her for a year. Facebook can’t replace a non social-distant hug!

For additional information see:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/moderna-vaccine-test-coronavirus-1.5803266