My Perspective on the COVID Vaccine

I want to share my perspective on the COVID vaccines because I think we need higher quality conversations on this subject without fear of people's vitriol and contempt.

Like many people, I started with mixed feelings about the vaccine that intensified by what I perceived to be an unreasonably fascistic response to genuine questions. I cannot tell you how many times I have asked honest questions about the vaccine and was then bombarded by people's ridicule, contempt, and hatred.

Let me say that I wholly condemn the mentality that pours contempt on people for genuine inquiry. This kind of small-minded fear of questioning the narrative on both sides is both weak and incredibly dangerous. Freedom of inquiry is essential to being free to think for ourselves! When we mock others for their differing ideas or for asking new questions, we show ourselves incapable of dealing with true inquiry. 

My own attempt to understand the COVID vaccines began by reading far and wide across perspectives on this issue. I have listened to hours upon hours of podcasts and videos from doctors of all different kinds arguing both for and against the vaccine (some of these podcasts and videos have taken me to some very cringy sites!)

One of the first obstacles that I encountered was that my understanding of certain concepts and vocabulary as they were being discussed was insufficient to grasp the basic points being made. Unfortunately, I found that most of the information I found on the internet came in an incomplete snippet-like format, and frequently, said definitions didn't deal with the whole system or process involved in the arguments I was hearing being made on one side or the other. So, I went out and bought an advanced high-school biology book (pictured below) and read the sections on DNA, RNA, mitosis, protein synthesis, and the lymphatic system (i.e. the immune system). I used this book to help me interpret what I was reading and hearing and things started making more sense!

Let's start by sharing some of the questions that were in my mind about the COVID vaccine and the answers that I have found to these questions.

My first question was whether or not one could get COVID from the vaccine, and I was hearing all kinds of reports and claims that people were contracting COVID from these vaccines.

These vaccines are not traditional vaccines (we'll talk about that next). Instead of using dead or live virus sequences, this vaccine uses protein mRNA to teach your body to produce the protein sequence that the virus uses to connect to your body's ACE-2 receptors. Your immune system then recognizes these proteins as foreign and creates an immune response. However, your body does not create the other 28 proteins necessary to create the virus itself, which means that your body cannot catch COVID from this vaccination.

Without the other 28 protein sequences, it is impossible for your body to contract COVID from this vaccine. However, this vaccine will still be able to recognize the virus because the virus contains this protein sequence.

My second question was about the vaccine itself: the mRNA vaccine is not a traditional vaccine and people have raised objections that this vaccine is not really a "vaccine", but a "gene theory". These concerns are then followed by questions about whether or not this vaccine can be used to modify our DNA. These questions and concerns are entirely valid and it infuriates me that the people who can best answer these questions are too arrogant to give thorough and respectful answers! What small minds and weak character is required to treat people with contempt merely for asking logical questions!

To answer these questions we need to think about what mRNA is, how it works, and what it does so that we can understand how this new vaccine platform works.

Refer to figure 1.8 in the picture below for an illustration of this process:

And figure 1.8's description:

We don't have to worry about this vaccine modifying our DNA because mRNA is one directional. In other words, mRNA enters the cell, where your DNA strand unravels, and then it copies the code from your DNA and takes it where it is needed to do the job assigned to that code. It does not have the ability to modify DNA; it only replicates existing DNA and carries the directions it receives to carry out specified functions. 

Another important observations is that mRNA code also has a limited lifespan, which is why two shots are required for this vaccine because the code being introduced to your body will die before your immune system is able to learn its response. Eventually the life span of this code will expire and your body will stop producing this protein, but your immune system will remember the right response ("how long" your immune system will remember this response has yet to be established, at least to my knowledge, but initial indicators seem optimistic).

The mRNA platform allows rapid development of vaccines because once scientists sequence a virus' protein, scientists can essentially just "plug and play".

Here is a short explanation from the above science book on how mRNA works:

In my opinion, the arrogant, self-superior, and authoritarian approach that so many doctors, public figures, and Big Tech platforms are taking is the primary reason why the vaccine has been politicized and polarizing. Questions that have relatively simple answers have been complicated by scorn, contempt, and insults. This has caused extreme distrust to permeate people's perception of the vaccine. And I can't blame anyone for this when they are met with such intense contempt for asking simple questions.

Every person must be wholly free to think for themselves and decide whether or not they are comfortable with the vaccine. No one should be forced to take the vaccine. 

I hope my experience thinking through these questions might benefit others who are still trying to think through things for themselves. Please feel free to comment with your questions and concerns. If I have any answers to contribute, I will respond, but I am not a scientist, so I have no doubt that there are many questions that can be posed to which I don't have any answers. And look for the videos in the comments with interviews from doctors on the vaccine.