Quote:
Originally Posted by RichardCoulter
A doctor said on TV yesterday that the vaccination works by exposing people to a mild dose of Covid, thus allowing their immune system to recognise the virus & prepare itself to fight it.
As a consequence, someone asked if they should have the vaccine if they've recently had the virus. The answer was yes, but to wait for four weeks before being vaccinated.
It seems odd that someone who naturally catches it doesn't become immune, but someone who is given it artificially obtains a varying level of immunity. If having and surviving Covid doesn't give one immunity, it's interesting that being given it artificially does.
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That's not factually accurate - neither the Pfizer or the Oxford vaccines give you a "mild dose" of COVID.
Many standard vaccines work by injecting a dead or weakened form of the pathogen into the body (as stated above) in preparations that are designed not to make you sick but rather to build immunity. The key to building this immunity is that the portion of the pathogen called the antigen trains the immune system to recognise and respond to the infectious agent.
The Pfizer vaccine works by introducing into the body a messenger RNA (mRNA) sequence that contains the genetic instructions for the vaccinated person’s own cells to produce the vaccine antigens and generate an immune response.
https://www.pfizer.co.uk/behind-scie...t-mrna-vaccine
The Oxford/AZ vaccine uses a harmless, weakened version of a common virus (not COVID) which causes a cold in chimpanzees. The virus is genetically modified so it is impossible for it to grow in humans. Scientists have transferred the genetic instructions for coronavirus’s specific “spike protein” – which it needs to invade cells – to the vaccine. When the vaccine enters cells inside the body, it uses this genetic code to produce the surface spike protein of the coronavirus. This induces an immune response, priming the immune system to attack coronavirus if it infects the body.
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-11-19/...d-vaccine-work