COVID-19 – Keep Updating Your Vaccine Knowledge
On April 13, 2021 the FDA and CDC issued instructions to suspend for an undetermined time the distribution of the Johnson and Johnson Covid-19 single dose vaccine due to negative side effects related to blood clots (less than 10 reported out of 6 million+ shots to date). As of March 10, 2021, Twenty-three different vaccines utilizing different approaches are being issued and used in various countries in the world (3 in the U.S.), with more than 200 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 in different stages of development. Of these 200, more than 60 are currently in human trials seeking distribution approval.
If you have had Covid-19 but not been vaccinated with one of the approved Covid-19 vaccines, check with your professional health care provider before having a Covid-19 vaccine shot and take an antibody test. If your antibody test is positive there is a risk, difficult to determine and varying by individual, that your already existing Covid-19 antibodies from having had the virus could conflict with the vaccine Covid-19 antigens as they initiate new B-cell Covid-19 antibodies; thus producing unwanted negative side effects.
Did you know there are three different approaches called platforms for making a COVID-19 vaccine? While too complicated for a brief memorandum, the three platforms, or approaches for making a vaccine are to make a vaccine by using (1) a whole virus or bacterium; (2) parts of a virus to trigger the immune system or (3) just the genetic material of a virus or bacterium. The latter genetic format is a relatively new approach with great promise by hopefully protecting cell health against attacks by SARS-CoV-2 RNA viruses, including COVID-19 and multiple mutations, that often can now disable an uninfected cell’s viral defenses including replication prevention.
Note all effective COVID-19 vaccines involve the immune system that must be normalized to the point immune cells can be and are activated, engaged and enabled to make appropriate antibodies to recognize, respond and resolve the dangers and risks of the virus. How do you normalize your immune system?
Most people are now immuno-compromised to some extent and need to immediately adopt a lifestyle of a healthy diet, adequate rest, good hygiene including frequent hand washing, moderate exercise, stress management to the extent possible, proper distancing, pharmaceutical review and supplementation with quality supplements including those classified as biological defense response modifiers and classified as GRAS. The above steps are critical if as a nation we are to overcome and control this pandemic.
Why is vaccine development so expensive? Did you know on average only 7 out of 100 vaccine candidates evaluated and studied in the lab with laboratory animals are determined to be both safe and effective enough to be used in human trials? Then, just one in five of those proposed vaccines in human trials will be declared, usually on an emergency basis, to be safe and effective for human distribution with effectiveness estimated from 60 to 95%.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 is only one form of a coronavirus. Also included as forms or strains of Coronaviruses are influenza, common colds, Ebola, Sars and many more. The listed ones are all RNA viruses. RNA acts as a messenger between DNA and ribosomes to make proteins, while DNA is responsible for storing and transferring genetic information.
The bad news is RNA viruses are not stable and constantly mutate or change, usually to avoid detection or blockage of replication in target cells. In fact, there has never, as in not ever, been a universally successful RNA virus vaccine due to these virus traits of constant change and structure. The reason there are 3 or 4 virus strains in an annual flu shot is due to this mutation capability that can render a prior vaccine totally or partially ineffective.
The initial vaccine goal is to stop the activation and multiplying of COVID-19 to hopefully make COVID-19 disease controllable to minimize sickness and death and significantly reduce hospitalizations. Current vaccines will work until they don’t due to mutations that frequently increase virus mutant transmissibility in becoming more contagious.
The medical community is becoming more amenable to the fact more likely in the future there will be annual changes in Coronavirus’ vaccine shots, with changes involving the presence of antibodies against the most likely strains and mutations of the variants and mutations of Coronavirus. Then the public has to hope any Coronavirus/COVID-19 vaccine changes engage and stop the future mutations and variants.
The ultimate goal in vaccine development is to discover or recognize a vaccine component or biological response modifier that can safely and effectively block the ability of any Coronavirus strain, variant or mutation to infect, and multiply once encountering the human or animal body target cells.
