9 facts and fables about corona vaccines
Teenagers pose questions to scientists
On Monday 12 July, the Evaluation Board for Medicines (CBG), in cooperation with Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ (UU) and U-talent, organised a junior corona lecture: 'Questions about vaccines’. At the lecture, the chair of the Evaluation Board for Medicines, Ton de Boer, paediatrician/epidemiologist Patricia Bruijning of UMC Utrecht, and ethicist Naomi van Steenbergen of Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ, answered questions from secondary school students about the corona vaccine, based on current scientific knowledge. The main questions and answers that were dealt with can be found below.
1. What does the corona vaccine do in your body?
The vaccine that is currently approved for teenagers is a new type of vaccine, a mRNA vaccine. It is encapsulated in a blob of fat. The blob of fat contains a ‘code’ (mRNA). We have all sorts of mRNAs in our bodies; codes that give your body instructions to produce proteins. This specific code ends up in all your cells and causes your body to make a piece of the virus, the protruding bit (the spike). Your body then starts producing a type of soldiers, antibodies, to combat these spikes. If, at some later stage, your body is exposed to the real virus, then your body can immediately deploy this ‘army’ against the virus so that you will not get sick, or much less so.
Four to six weeks after the injection there is no trace of the vaccine left in your body, and by then it has done its job. Your body has activated your defences, which you retain for many years
2. Does having been jabbed mean that you can no longer contract corona?
The vaccination reduces the risk of falling ill from the corona virus by more than ninety percent. Some teenagers (and adults) who have actually contracted the virus, do not notice it at all. This is still possible with the mRNA vaccines. It doesn't happen often, but it cannot be ruled out entirely. It's just that we don't mind it too much, after all, you have no symptoms, and you don't become ill. On top of that, because you don't cough and sneeze, the likelihood of infecting someone else is very small.
3. No, the vaccination doesn't cause infertility. Where does this myth originate?
As described in question one, your body is stimulated to make a piece of the virus, the protrusion. Rumour has it that the protruding bit resembles a protrusion that is important for pregnancy. First of all, the two protrusions do not resemble each other at all, it concerns a completely different protein. Furthermore, if they were to be similar, then the corona virus would also cause infertility, because the protein with the protrusion also ends up in your body when you become infected with corona. And that is not the case.
4. Can the vaccine have new side effects in the long term?
The vaccine you are injected with is no longer present in your body after a few weeks, by which time it has activated your immune system. The probability of side effects from the vaccination in the long term is extremely small. You will experience any side effects mainly in the days or weeks after being vaccinated, not thereafter. It has never happened with other vaccines that a side effect is discovered, for example, ten years later. A vaccination has a very short active life, it trains your own immune system and then leaves your body.
5. How do you know what information you should believe about the vaccine?
There are a lot of wild stories on the internet. Stories claiming, for example, that you could become infertile from the vaccine or even change into a zombie! These stories are not true. Despite the vaccine having been developed very quickly, no single step was skipped in its development, which is why these vaccines are just as safe as other vaccines. Reliable information can be found on the government websites and those of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), and the Evaluation Board for Medicines. On these sites you can find out exactly what we know, and also what we don't know about the vaccine. For that matter, it is always important check the source of any information that you find on the internet about vaccinations.
6. Is it really necessary to have yourself vaccinated?
This depends to some extent on how you feel about it. There are many advantages to vaccination, however you only reap the benefits if you, yourself, are vaccinated. For example, that you no longer get ill if you are infected, or that you no longer need to go into quarantine if someone in your class or a family member has come down with corona.
There are always advantages that we all benefit from as a group if enough people within the group have been vaccinated. For example, we could be freed from most of the corona related restrictions if about four out of five people were to be vaccinated. Everyone must decide for themselves if they wish to be one of the four. It might feel good to finally be able to contribute to solving the crisis. On the other hand, you might be totally against getting vaccinated, for example because you parents feel strongly about it.
7. Can you be infected by the vaccination, and how big is the needle?
No. You only get infected with the virus from other people. You don't get given any of the virus in a vaccination. You only get that little blob of fat with the code inside it, as we explained at question one.
The needle used to give the jab is very thin. It is in fact much smaller than the needle used for a shot against HPV or meningitis. You hardly feel it. Afterwards your arm may feel a little bruised, but that's a good sign, because it means your body is reacting to it.
8. If there are that many side effects, is it actually safe to get vaccinated?
Everyone must decide for themselves. The vaccination protects you from getting infected with corona, which can be really serious. But on the other hand, the vaccination has side effects like sore muscles, headache and fever. These are symptoms you would also get if you had a cold. The probability of serious side effects, like an infection of the heart muscle or an allergic reaction is minute, and these are easily treated. At the end of the day everyone must make up their own minds, however, the pros far outweigh the cons. This also applies to children, teenagers and young adults.
9. Who must decide about vaccination, the teenagers, or their parents?
In principle, permission should be given by the parents of teenagers between 12 to 15 years, in consultation with their teenagers. It is quite an important decision that can have drastic consequences and it is therefore important that parents take their teenager's point of view seriously. If, however, you cannot reach an agreement with your parents, or one parent says that you should be vaccinated and the other disagrees, then the final say is yours.