• Question: How will a vaccine stop coronavirus

    Asked by grey49dug on 30 Oct 2020.
    • Photo: Liudmila Khokhlova

      Liudmila Khokhlova answered on 30 Oct 2020: last edited 30 Oct 2020 2:15 pm

      Generally, a vaccine gives a person immunity, meaning this person would not get sick when they come into contact with another sick person. If people around are vaccinated, a sick person just couldn’t pass the virus. So these sick people will recover, their body will kill the virus and since they didn’t spread it to other people – the virus stopped.

      An infectious disease cannot spread when immune/vaccinated people are in the way of transmission. If there’re enough of such people, the spread of disease stops completely. That way people who can not be vaccinated (for example, because of allergy), would be protected too. This is called herd immunity.

      However, a vaccine for COVID 19 is still work in progress.

    • Photo: Marie Culliton

      Marie Culliton answered on 30 Oct 2020:

      Vaccines work by promoting the production of antibodies by the body to fight the infection. Some vaccines offer lifelong immunity eg Rubella or Measels. Others offer temporary immunity eg flu so you need to be vaccinated every year.
      No one knows how or if a vaccine will stop coronavirus

    • Photo: Parnika Gupta

      Parnika Gupta answered on 30 Oct 2020:

      Vaccine will help your body develop immunity to an infection by imitating (or acting like the infection). This will cause the fighter cells in your body to take charge and multiply quickly to fight the infection(in this case the vaccine acting like the infection). So after taking a vaccine, you might feel a bit of a temperature, but don’t you worry that’s your body telling you that we are fighting.

      Once the fighter cells win the fight, your body remembers the villain and will always fight it. That’s how your white blood cells win and your immunity grows. It’s similar to how your mum lets you go into the rain more often now as compared to before when you were really small and she would smother you with clothes:)

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