We are in a fight with a formidable enemy, the SARS-Cov-2 virus. Our primary weapon in this war is vaccination, but the enemy has a strong defense against it. As a result, we must prosecute the war with overwhelming force. Anything less will result in millions more deaths, to add to the millions who have already died.
What do I mean when I say that the enemy has a strong defense against vaccination? What is vaccination anyway?
A vaccine works by stimulating a person’s immune system to leap into action, to seek out and destroy the target pathogen. It does this by introducing into the body a non-functional piece of the pathogen in question. This could be an entire killed virus, or just a part of one, such as the SARS-Cov-2 spike protein. The immune system recognizes the viral material as foreign and remembers it. If it ever sees this same genetic material again, it knows it does not belong in the body, so it attacks and destroys it. In this way, vaccination causes the body to mount an immune response the next time it sees that same genetic pattern.
If you have been vaccinated with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, you have probably experienced what I did. Both vaccines consist of a first shot, followed by a booster shot about a month later.
After the first shot, I didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary.
After my booster shot, I most definitely did feel something. I felt fatigued and ill the following day. The spot where the injection had been made was sore. This was actually a good sign. It showed that after my first shot, my immune system had been alerted to be on the lookout for the SARS-Cov-2 spike protein. After my booster shot, my body recognized that protein in the second shot and reacted to it. This assured me that if I had been exposed to the actual virus rather than just the vaccine, my body would have mounted an energetic response to the infection.
Great. I’ve been fully vaccinated. I’m happy about that, but it does not mean that I am now fully immune to a SARS-Cov-2 infection. The threat is called a vaccine breakthrough infection, in which a fully vaccinated person contracts Covid-19 anyway. How can this happen?
The problem is that coronaviruses are lousy at reproduction. They reproduce asexually within the body of an infected person. They co-opt the machinery of an infected person’s cells to manufacture copies of themselves. Since they are commandeering cell functions that were optimized for another purpose, the copies they create are frequently mutated rather than exact copies. Most of these copies are not viable, because of the mistakes in their genetic code. Some however, survive, and of those, some are more infectious than the original. Some are more virulent, and some are both more infectious and more virulent. This is how the original virus from Wuhan, China, has largely been replaced by the UK variant, the New York variant, the South Africa variant, and the so-called Indian double mutant.
Whenever a mutation occurs, there is a possibility that it will escape and create a new wave of infections among vaccinated people. If a vaccine that originally targeted the Wuhan strain does not recognize a new variant, vaccination will be ineffective. This has happened, as described in a paper appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine titled “Vaccine Breakthrough Infections with SARS-Cov-2 Variants.”
What should we do? The best answer is to attack the enemy with all we’ve got. Knock it out with a worldwide comprehensive vaccination campaign that kills the virus faster than it can mutate around our vaccination defenses. We must eliminate the virus everywhere in the world, to be safe anywhere in the world. To the extent that you can, support efforts to vaccinate everyone in the world.
BIO:
Allen G. Taylor is a 40-year veteran of the computer industry and the author of over 40 books, including Develop Microsoft HoloLens Apps Now, Get Fit with Apple Watch, Cruise for Free, SQL For Dummies, 9th Edition, Crystal Reports 2008 For Dummies, Database Development For Dummies, Access Power Programming with VBA, and SQL All-In-One For Dummies, Third Edition. He lectures internationally on astronomy, databases, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He also teaches database development and Crystal Reports through a leading online education provider. For the latest news on Allen’s activities, check out his blog at wwwallengtaylor.com or contact him at allen.taylor@ieee.org.