Vaccines 101
We are all waiting for a Covid-19 vaccine. There are high expectations on the timing and distribution of such a vaccine. This short blog is a primer based on my recent learnings. Hope it will help you navigate all the information to correctly set your expectations. Immunity is the ability of our body to recognize a germ and rapidly create immunity cells that release antibodies. The antibodies neutralize the invader and mark it for disposal. The immune army disbands when all the invaders have been eliminated. This operation needs to take place rapidly (within a day) for the body to be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. When a new germ is encountered the body is not able to do this quickly and the germ can enter our cells, replicate and disrupt normal body functions. Once the body has successfully eliminated a germ, the long-lasting impact is that it recognizes the germ when it appears next and can react rapidly to remove it within a day. A vaccine is a controlled mechanism to trick the...