Coronavirus vaccine doses sitting on the shelf, waiting to be distributed to the public. photo courtesy of Ross County Health District
There are many differences between the various COVID-19 vaccines.
Throughout this past year, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected the lives of everyone around the world. The most common questions people seem to be asking is when will life go back to normal? How exactly will the world be able to recover from this deadly virus? Will we ever be able to go out without masks again? The answers to these questions can be summed up into one word: vaccine. There have been a lot of concerns surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine, mostly questioning the effectiveness and safety of it since it was created in such a short period of time. There are only two vaccines being distributed in America right now, but other companies have started to develop their own since vaccine distribution has been so slow. Without the vaccine, society would not be able to achieve herd immunity, which is the key to ending this pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when the majority of a population becomes immune to a certain disease, therefore making the spread of that disease more unlikely. This is usually achieved through vaccination, but what kinds of vaccines are out there and what kinds of people in the community are able to receive them?
One of the more common vaccines in America at the moment is called the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (medical name: BNT162b2). This vaccine is intended for anyone 16 years of age and older, and in order for it to be fully operational in one’s body, one must take two doses (shots) of this vaccine, 21 days apart. Unlike some of the other vaccines being distributed and created during this time, the Pfizer vaccine is an mRNA vaccine. The mRNA vaccines teach the body how to create proteins. The proteins trigger an immune response inside the body, the immune response creates antibodies, and the antibodies protect the body from the virus. As opposed to other vaccines that generally put a weakened or deactivated version of the virus into one’s body, mRNA vaccines do not. In layman’s terms, this particular vaccine does not have the live virus in it.
However, the Pfizer vaccine is not the only vaccine that is available in America right now. The second approved vaccine to be used against COVID-19 is called Moderna (medical name: mRNA-1273). This vaccine is also an mRNA vaccine. What makes this one different from the Pfizer one is that the Moderna vaccine is only intended for people 18 years of age and older. In order for this one to fully function in one’s body, one has to get this vaccine in two doses as well, 28 days apart. The side effects of the Moderna vaccine are pain, swelling, and redness in the injection site, along with chills, fatigue, and headaches throughout the rest of the body. These symptoms can usually start within a few days of getting the vaccine but then go away a few days later. The same side effects may also occur with the Pfizer vaccine.
The reason for the different age restrictions in these vaccines is due to the fact that during clinical trials, the medical professionals who created the vaccine only tested them on a certain age group. For example, the Moderna vaccine was only tested on people ranging in ages from 18-85 years old, and the Pfizer vaccine was only tested on people ages 16 and up, hence why these vaccines have age restrictions set on them. They are not saying these vaccines could not work on people younger than the ages specified; however, they do not have any scientific data to back up that theory due to the fact that they have not done any clinical trials on the younger population.
Luckily, for the people who are able to get the vaccine, they will play an important role in protecting the people around them who are not able to get the vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Based on evidence from clinical trials, the Moderna vaccine was 94.1% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 illness in people who received two doses who had no evidence of being previously infected,” and “the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 95% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 illness in people without evidence of previous infection.” This means that although these vaccines do not completely eradicate the possibility of contracting the virus, they drastically lower the possibility of infection.
Unfortunately, according to public health officials, these vaccines currently are not as effective against the new strains of coronavirus that are currently spreading through the United States. The vaccines are not completely useless against these new variants but they are still not as effective toward them as they are toward the original strain of COVID-19. This is due to the fact that while Pfizer and Moderna were being made and put through clinical trials, the new strains of coronavirus had not yet been discovered. Therefore, the scientists in charge of creating the vaccines had no way of adapting them to protect against these new variants. However, there may be a silver lining, despite all of these difficulties.
According to the CDC, as of December 28th, 2020, there are three new vaccines that have been created that are being put through Phase 3 (large-scale) clinical trials. These three new vaccines are called AstraZeneca, Janssen, and Novavax. The age restrictions on these are not known at this time due to the fact that they have not completed clinical trials yet. These vaccines are different from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines for several reasons, one of which being that the new vaccines are not mRNA like the previous two. In addition, the Janssen vaccine (created by the company Johnson and Johnson) only requires one dose in order to be effective, as opposed to two doses as previously observed in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
Although there may be skepticism surrounding the Coronavirus vaccines due to the fact that they were created record-breakingly fast, these seem to be the only weapons that society has to defeat the ongoing pandemic. Despite the slow distribution process, eventually, enough people can get vaccinated in order to obtain herd immunity so the world can finally be rid of this pandemic once and for all.
