coronavirus COVID-19 Vaccines hey today we will take a look at the different types of covet vaccines but before that let’s understand what avaccine does inside the body coronavirus taking a vaccine is like conducting a fire drill preparing a defense strategy to get ready for the real fire orperhaps like taking a mock test to get ready for the final exam vaccines safely expose.

Our body to the pathogen or the disease causing organisms coronavirus these could be viruses bacteria fungi or parasites a vaccination is some what like showing usa photograph of the enemy for us to be able to remember it basically our immune system recognizes the Intruder and fights it off using anti bodies without really making us sick and while this happens.

The immune system memorizes the details of the Intruder so in covid 19 case of a real infection It is Wellarmed and prepared and all this happens with this tiny amount coronavirus of liquid now we have a detailed on how all this happens in the body and you can find the link below but for now let’s talk about the different types of vaccines vaccines in general.

Have been developed with three different approaches ones that use a whole pathogen or the entire virus or bacteria two that use parts or subunits of the virus and three the covid 19 one sthat use only the genetic material of the virus let’s take a look at the first approach coronavirus back in 1879 Louis Pasteur developed the first known vaccine for chicken cholera by a chance Discovery.

He noticed a culture of disease causing pathogens which had weakened over time this pathogen was no longer as deadly as the actual virus so when this weakened pathogen was injected into the body as avaccine.

It acted like an injured and harmless enemy soldier walking rightin to our covid 19 camp body recognized it as an intruder anti bodies were developed and stored in memory the coronavirus enemy soldier or virus on the other hand was so weak that it could barely cause any damage and it soon died this type of vaccine is called the live attenuated vaccine.

covid 19 Vaccines

Now since this vaccine uses the whole pathogen there was still a tiny chance that the bacteria or virus could begin multiplying within the body there fore it has to go through extensive covid 19 testing before it can be injected into patients next the scientists decided to expose this virus to extreme heat and radiationto kill it the dead virus would no longer be able to multiply.

But it would still look exactly like the live virus so clever and with high safety standards this one could be delivered to people of all age groups the second kind of whole virus vaccine is called the inactivated vaccine the covet vaccine created in India covaxine is an example of an inactivated vaccine now.The these are conventional approaches to making vaccines.

Let’s learn about some next-gen approaches the second approach to coronavirus making vaccines was to use only a small part of the pathogen and not the whole virus or bacteria scientists thought what if we introduce into the body the most prominent feature of SARS Kobe 2 or the coronavirus the spike protein what do you think is going to happen yes you’re right the immune system recognizes.

It asa foreign body and it continues to produce antibodies against it but the body would face no risk these types of vaccines are called subunit vaccines they contain only a coronavirus small harmless partof the virus which is COVID-19 Vaccines enough to trigger the immune system however there is achance that this Spike protein alone may not get the attention of the immune system.

That’s why subunit vaccines contain another ingredient and adjuvantan adjuvant wakes up the immune system to recognize the subunit antigen the covet vaccine made by the company covid 19 Nova wax uses this approach but the greatest challenge of the covid-19 pandemic was to produce large volumes of vaccines in the shortest possible time so.

While the conventional approaches were tried and tested theactual large-scale coronavirus production of a whole virus or even a subunit vaccine could take several years and this is where the third covid 19 approach comes in vaccines that use the genetic material of the virus so this time the scientists thought insteadof injecting the virus or the spike protein into the body.

How about we make the body produce its own Spike proteinand they came out with two types of covet vaccines based on this idea let’s look at them one by one the first one is coronavirus the MRNA vaccine so what is an mRNA and mRNA is a messenger a messenger RNA itis Created from the DNA in the nucleus of a cell and it carries instructions tomake a specific kind of protein.

The messenger RNA travels out of the nucleus into the cytoplasm where the protein manufacturing Machinery of the cell reads those instructions and starts to manufacture the covid 19 spike protein and did you know that this mRNA is a super temporary messenger it gives the instruction and then dies off a bit likea disappearing message on your favorite app by the way.

coronavirus

You will also get a lot of interesting information about DNA and RNA at the by juice app so the idea behind the MRNA vaccine was to use the Machinery of our own coronavirus body to produce the harmless Spike protein by itself the vaccine contains a modified mRNA of the corona virus and once this enters the body it programs our cells to start producing.

The spike proteins the immune system recognizes the spike protein asan intruder and a mini war begins right inside our arm PS that is why our arm feels sore coronavirus after a vaccine shot but it’s all good who a all this without ever seeing the virus how ever the challenge here was the fragile nature of the MRNAto help it survive the MRNA is wrapped inside lipid nano particles like coronavirus butter droplets COVID-19 Vaccines.

COVID-19 Vaccines If you can imagine this code keeps them stable and easily injectable into our selves unlike the conventional vaccines theMRNA approach makes the coronavirus vaccine production super fast low cost and scalable covet vaccines created by moderna and P fizer bioent Tech have used this technology to produce their vaccines.

Now one of the limitations of these vaccines is that they have to be stored and transported at extremely low temperatures which makes it a challenge for wide scale distribution and coronavirus now let’s talk about the last type of covet vaccine the viral Vector vaccine this one also uses the third approach of using genetic material a viral.

Vector vaccine is like taking a car modify ingits engine based on your requirement sand sending the car off on your own secret mission a bit like a sci-fi movie isn’t ita viral Vector vaccine has two element sthe shell or the viral Vector which is the car and the genetic material inside are modified engine a viral Vector vaccine uses a weakened virus as a shell the car this can be any virus even acold flu virus.

COVID-19 Vaccines The genetic material orthe engine of this virus is removed in place of that a modified DNA of the coronavirus is inserted and once this is inside the body coronavirus coronavirus this modified DNA sends out an mRNA which once again programs our body to produce the spike protein pretty similar to the MRNA vaccines a viral Vector vaccine tends to be more stable for two reasons one.

It uses the DNA instead of a super temporary mRNA and second this DNA is en cased in a virus shell that is why viral Vector vaccines can now be stored at more equity table temperatures Kobe Shield the vaccine developed by Oxford Astra Zeneca the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and Sputnik V made in Russia have used this approach interesting wasn’t it.

It’s all about creating a memory the only difference is whether you show the real person or a photographor even a nose or an eye in the end once we create immunity against the pathogen the war will be won for more such interesting content head over COVID-19 Vaccines.

Long COVID: What Do You Need to Know?

Long COVID is very difficult to see Like almost every aspect of this condition serves to hide its own reality from public view. This attitude of needing to live with COVID means that you also must live with ignoring the people who cannot move past it.- Most of the world seems more.

But for millions this might not be an immediate possibility, if ever. We’re talking about those suffering with long COVID, a condition caused by the COVID-19 virus that leaves many with an often misunderstood illness that steals brain function, physical energy, and coronavirus provides a lot of unanswered questions.

6 percent say they currently do. Do the math, that’s a lot of people. But many are telling us that their condition is often being ignored and down played by academics and those in the medical field.

And this leads many in vulnerable communities, especially women and certain racialand ethnic groups struggling to find work and validation. So what’s the deal? Is this medical gas lighting? Is there more to long COVID than we currently understand? Simply put, long COVID is a coronavirus condition What is Long COVID where the symptoms of a COVID-19 infection continue after recovering from the initial infection.

And symptoms can include brain fog, chronic fatigue, and post exertional malaise, a condition in which after doing any minor physicalor mental activity, people crash. You need to rest for a period of time before doing anything else that requires energy. And you can imagine coronavirus this is really debilitating It should be understood that long COVID affects everyone differently. The length, acuity, and variance,and symptoms can differ from person to person.

And because there isn’t a blood test or a medical diagnostic test that can say,”Yes, you have long COVID,”doctors are left treating symptoms, not necessarily the condition itself. The question of medical gas lighting really intrigued and frustrated me as both a doctor and a journalist. So our team wanted to learn more. I needed some answers quickly.

Ed Yong, an award-winning journalist, science communicator, and author. He’s covered COVID and long COVID for three years now.- The spring of 2020, I started covering the pandemic. Ed Yong, reality of Long COVID today I was writing big pieces about the scope of COVID, where coronavirus we were headed, why it was so confusing. And in the midst of all of that, I was reading accounts from people who were sick for three weeks, four weeks, a couple of months.

So it hit quite close to home. And I started looking for more evidence that this was a wider trend and found plenty of it. And what was really striking to me when I first wrote about coronavirus this was most of the doctors and most of the academics I knew hadn’t heard of it. And a lot of these people simply didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know what was going on. They’d had no idea why their bodies were rebelling in this weird way.-

So it’s almost like people were viewing COVID as in you were either going to lose your life, wind up intubated, or you’re gonna be running in the sun shine, you’re completely fine. And people were missing the middle.- One of the most common things that happens to people with long COVID is they get told that their symptoms are all in their head, that they’re making it up, that they’re just coronavirus being lazy or they have anxiety or depression, none of which actually gels with their experiences.

But they hear this from doctors, from employers, from friends and family. And that is almost as badas the actual physical symptoms themselves. You know, this being taught, having the reality of your illness denied.- So I got sick back in March of 2020. Margot Gage talks about her Long COVID diagnosis So I was one of the first wavers as they call us. And it was, at first, I didn’t take it, you know, I didn’t think it was gonna impact me because they were saying that it was older people or people with prior conditions who needed to be worried about COVID.

I was having a plethora of symptoms and my symptoms lasted longer than two weeks. That was another thing that baffled doctors. So it wasn’t until about two, three months later when I wasn’t getting better. I’m dealing with these doctors and they’re not believing me.- I wasn’t really familiar with the gaslighting until I met with my first neurologist, which was about eight weeks after.

And he looked at me and he was kind of just insinuating Charlie McCone talks about his Long COVID challenges that maybe I’m having a tough time coping with the pandemic. And that was really surprising. I just turned 30 years old. I was biking 10 miles a day, had a very, you know, back and forth to work, had a very active social life. Today, I’m 33.

I’ve spent my entire 30s house bound, severely disabled with this condition. I can’t really read books. I used to listen to music for four to eight hours a day. And so it’s the quality of life of this condition is truly unfathomably low.-

People who have long COVID are, for obvious reasons, struggling to work, What it’s like living with Long COVID to pay their rent to do basic activities of daily life. And there’s very little in the way of support for that. It is possible, of course, to file for disability benefits, but remember that energy, any kind of exertion, including mental exertion, can lead to a crash. When I report on long COVID, it is very clear to me that patients, many of the patients who have this illnessare by far the most knowledgeable people about it.

And I don’t just mean knowledgeable in terms of knowing what symptoms they’re going through, ’cause that’s obvious. There is this sense of patients as being unreliable, unreliable sources about their own lives, which is stopping people from tapping into that knowledge. Most long COVID cases are in women. I think it’s much easier to psychologize their illness to say that their very rea lphysiological symptoms are just the result of some emotional or mental thing.

I think people of color face a specific, I think people of color face specific kinds of problems where the usual kinds of racial bias affect their lives. Also, they get mapped onto their experience with long COVID.- So that’s one of the interesting things. And I’m able to be the fly in the wall when he’s dealing with the doctor. So I’m able to see that contrast whereas people say,”Well, you know, maybe you’re over reacting,”or “Maybe it’s not really true.”

Because we live in a mixed house hold, you’re actually able to see the differences in treatment first hand. It’s actually really interesting.- Do you think this is almost emblematic of the issues with diagnosing Similar to other medical gaslighting examples and treating patients with other chronic illnesses, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic Lyme disease, or things where the medical community seems to be split?

Does this seem like this is a example of a large scale problem?- Yes, very much so. I think that long COVID is obviously new, because COVID has only been around for a few years, but many of these other conditions have been around for much, much longer and have similarly been dismissed. They have a wide range of symptoms that are often subjective and hard to see. They often disproportionately affect women and they are not things that are a common part of medical training.

First, the very nature of long COVID was dismissed. And now I think that it’s been replaced by a more insidious form of dismissal that it’s not like people are saying it’s not real, they’re saying it’s real, but maybe it’s not that big a deal.- Do we know who is at risk of developing long COVID? Is there things about certain demographics, severity of initial infection that we definitively know that you were at risk?Who is most vulnerable-

So this is one of the hardest questions to answer, right? Who actually is at risk of long COVID? So long COVID seems to be able to affect people who’ve had mild infections, but people also who have been hospitalized. People who have traditional COVID risk factors, but also people who don’t. Vaccination reduces the risk of developing it, but doesn’t mitigate it entirely.

So I know people, plenty of people, who’ve been vaccinated and then got long COVID after an infection. So I would sort of say that yes, there are certainly some risk factors, but I’m not sure you could ever say to someone your risk is zero or you are definitely going to get it. We’re just not at that point yet.- Two years ago, the HHS and DOJ both put out big statements talking about how long COVID was covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Yet, according to stories I hear, some pieces I’ve read of yours, people with long COVID are still having trouble accessing resources. Why do you think that is, what’s happening?- I think because being eligible for disability is not the same as actually getting disability benefits. And there’s a massive labyrin thin bure aucracy that exists between those two things, which is very hard for people to access.

Even for someone who doesn’t have one of these illnesses, I think just claiming disability benefits is a very involved and very difficult process.- I was denied my first round of short-term disability, which forced me to try to keep working through, when I clearly should not have been, for 18 months. I eventually found a new doctor and he was appalled that I was still working after hearing the symptoms I was working through, worked really hard on my case, got me short from disability.

That lasted through last September and at that point I was still completely debilitated. I remember talking to a social worker and being like, “What do I do now?” And they said, “Well, I really recommend you trying to get back to work.”I said, “It’s simply just not possible right now.” And they said, I’m like,”Well, what about long-term disability?” And they said, “Well, I really don’t recommend applying ’cause they’re not going to accept you.

You’re just way too young.”And I was like, “Well, what am I supposed to do? Go homeless? “I applied in November, I was immediately denied and my case is now finally moving forward after nine months.- You mentioned a lot of people do not recover. And millions of people out there, Recovery is possible according to surveys, have long COVID, millions are more likely under diagnosed.

Have you read cases about recovery or any trends that you’ve seen that are helping people get better?- Yeah, I think that clearly some people do recover. And I think if you look at national surveys of the total number of long haulers, you see a big spike during the omicron when, in the initial omicron waves, and then those numbers go down after wards.

So especially, if you manage to rest well in the early phases, recovery is possible. I want to be clear that recovery is possible, but it may not be complete.- So for anyone out there who is suffering long COVID, please know that you’re not alone and that there’s a massive support group out there who wants to help and will advocate for you. And physicians, we have to do a better job of listening and working together to help these millions of people who are suffering every single day.

If you go online, you can find long COVID clinics and support groups near you. And if you see any clinical trials that may apply to you or a loved one, please consider joining them.