Dr Strioga on the Effects of COVID-19 Vaccines: Two Things Matter

– Let’s take a look at the Lithuanian news: medical personnel are vaccinated daily, albeit gradually, against COVID-19, and it has been announced that we will receive a new shipment of vaccines every Monday from now on. Does it give you hope in what is happening now, or are we coming out of that crisis at a sufficient rate?

– From the beginning of the pandemic, we waited for a vaccine to be developed. And it is the most effective tool for managing a pandemic. Still, when it comes to vaccines, not just this but others, two things need to be remembered. Vaccines can protect against disease and infection. These are two different things. Current research shows how much a vaccine can protect a person from getting sick, from getting the disease. And even if you do get sick, there is a milder form of the disease, so you don’t develop complications that can lead to death later. Current vaccines use about 90 percent. it prevents us from contracting the disease, and if we get sick, its course will be easier. But even a vaccinated person can become infected. This means that the virus enters the mucous membranes and can multiply.

– And infect other people?

– If it can reproduce, it can spread. Only after a while does the body feel that there is a virus that triggers an immune response and blocks it. So if it really turns out that vaccines only protect against disease, people who are vaccinated will have protection for themselves, but others who are not vaccinated will not be protected. As a result, it is said that even if the majority will be vaccinated for some time, measures such as distance, masks and restraints will need to be followed for some time. The least burden to be imposed on the health system and the success of the pandemic will depend on how many people are vaccinated. Perhaps with time it will become clear that they also protect against the spread of the disease, now nobody knows, it has not been studied.

– Is this vaccine even more likely to protect against diseases but not against infections?

– Okay, yes. At least that is really proven. However, let’s say a pneumococcal vaccine also prevents the spread of this disease. Hopefully at least some of the vaccines can protect against infection because we now have 6 approved vaccines.

– The first approved vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech is interesting because as far as I understand it does not contain the virus itself, just a synthetic one? Is this something new in the world of infections?

– If we talk about vaccination against infectious diseases, this technology has been thinking for 20 years. It wasn’t like creating something completely new. But for protection against infectious agents, yes, it is a new technology that uses a molecule made in a laboratory. It is simply a lab-produced fragment of the virus genome, an RNA molecule found in a special layer.

– Another message that has spread among scientists, although it has not yet been confirmed, is that COVID-19 is an autoimmune disease. Have you heard of this?

– It is not the autoimmune disease COVID-19 itself. Many autoimmune diseases are believed to be caused by a previous infection. Some bacterial infections, especially intestinal infections or viruses can cause this. It is now theorized that certain proteins in the virus may be somewhat similar in structure to those in our bodies. Just a similar snippet is enough. When a pathogen, such as a coronavirus, enters, the immune system removes the protein and begins to block it. The same warriors in the body may begin to believe that their own tissues are also enemies because they are similar to the coronavirus. This can lead to autoimmune complications. These complications can occur when a specific immune response responds to the virus. But even after the flu virus, theoretically autoimmune complications can develop.

– What do we currently know about the immune response that occurs after illness? Can a person get sick without getting sick, or just can’t get sick?

– You probably can’t get sick. The infection is not yet known due to the need for testing. It is well known from the immune response to coronaviruses that antibodies did not persist in the body for a long time. And against the 4 coronaviruses that were already in the past, and against SARS, and against the MERS coronavirus. High antibody titers were generally 6 to 8 months. The cold survived the virus for 1 to 2 years. There are reports that antibodies to the MERS virus are up to 5 years old. However, in principle, this is not the case with measles, where the immune response develops throughout life. This is generally not the case for all coronaviruses. However, the absence of antibodies does not mean that the body does not remember how to react to the virus. There are several “divisions”. One of them are B lymphocytes, which when the virus enters, they see a certain protein, multiply and become plasma cells. They can live for months or decades.

Suppose it lives a few months, disappears, and there are no more antibodies. But memory B lymphocytes, which can very quickly turn into plasma cells, remain. The fact that we do not find antibodies does not mean that the body will not react. However, it is easier to test for antibodies than for B lymphocytes. However, antibodies to coronavirus are likely to persist for up to a year for most and up to 2-3 years for some. However, some no longer have antibodies after 3 months. Therefore, people who are sick are not in the priority group now. I often get questions about what happens if I get sick and get vaccinated. The worst that can happen is that the immune response will think that the vaccine is a virus and will destroy it, the protection of the vaccine will not remain. Clearly, if at least part of the vaccine was not destroyed, which is quite likely, the immune response would improve. If there were many vaccines, perhaps they would be vaccinated.

Although there is not much rationality in it, because money would be wasted. When we have a more in-depth investigation, there will likely be recommendations on when to relapse, perhaps in half a year. It is now considered that vaccination should not be given for at least 3 months after a person has been confirmed to have a coronavirus infection. By the way, there are still cases of doctors becoming infected with other COVID-19s after the first vaccine. And nothing like that happens. A complete immune response occurs 2 to 3 weeks after vaccination. The first antibodies appear after a few days. Let’s say you got vaccinated on Monday and got infected with the coronavirus on Friday. The complete immune response has not yet been established. The vaccine induces an immune response and the virus can cause it. A stronger immune response is likely to occur. The immune system is very unlikely to react too strongly. Of course, the amount of virus that has entered someone else’s body is still important, because the vaccine itself does not contain the virus.

– Do you agree that there is a lot to talk about and inform people about? Someone can spread the word that they have been vaccinated and become infected a few days later. Information is very important now.

– Yes, it is very important. We can expect an immune response from the first dose of the vaccine just a month later. Many fears stem from side effects that can cause fever, broken bones, headaches. But this is a normal expression of the immune response. And with the flu, these phenomena are felt because it is the body’s natural response. When a woman becomes pregnant and is nauseous, she feels weak; after all, we don’t think how scary it is, because it is a natural course of pregnancy. People say they will not get vaccinated because they fear the side effects of the vaccine. Let’s take the instructions for ibuprofen, viagra and see what the possible side effects are. He says there is a risk of deafness, blindness, temporary memory loss, myocardial infarction. Or quick abortion pills, after unprotected sex.

They can cause a wide range of bleeds. We know that alcohol is very harmful to health, then chopping fatty foods, which the pancreas does not like very much, then the idea that the evening should be spent intimately occurs to him, it is to drink Viagra. In the morning she has a headache, takes painkillers, the girl runs to the pharmacy to buy medicine for unprotected sex. And there is no fear of blindness, overheating and liver damage, countless side effects. But when it comes to the vaccine, for some reason it’s scary. It’s strange where such beliefs come from. In the United States, patients are admitted to the toxicology department primarily because of acetaminophen poisoning.

The most common cause of liver transplants is liver damage due to acetaminophen poisoning. But that’s why no one reads the instructions. When a new drug is registered, about a thousand people participate in the studies. When a new vaccine is studied, about 10,000 people participate. I don’t know where that fear of insecurity comes from. Vaccines have saved billions of lives, a great achievement. It’s strange why they are so obstructive to everyone now.