The COVID Vaccine - How It Works

Hi, I'm Jared, and this is Fun Science Demos back again to explain how the COVID-19 vaccines work. If you haven't already watched our video, How Vaccines Work, we recommend that you start with that video first. In that video, we asked you to think of your body as a fortress with guards all around to keep out the bad guys that might just make you sick. Sometimes those guards don't know what the invaders look like, and they slip by and do damage to your body. But vaccines are almost like having wanted posters all around showing the guards pictures of the bad guys so they recognize them immediately, and they're ready to protect the fortress, your body. Now some of the newer vaccines work a little bit differently. They get the same results protection, but they do it in a slightly different way. We're going to offer a very simple explanation and leave out some of the details that can get a little bit complicated. Our goal is to give you a very basic explanation of how the COVID-19 vaccines work. The virus that causes COVID-19, the coronavirus, has spikes all over it. These spikes are like weapons that they use to get inside your body to do damage. Once inside, the guards in your body do not immediately recognize this bad guy or this type of weapon. It may take them a while to understand how dangerous they are. Now remember, we compared other vaccines to wanted posters that showed pictures of the bad guys to your immune system, while the COVID-19 vaccine works a little bit differently. Think of it like this. A messenger makes it into the fortress, and this messenger is carrying an instruction book. This very important messenger and instruction book has a name. It's called MRNA. The M stands for messenger. The instruction book shows the guards in our immune system how to build the weapons that the bad guys use. Why would we want our immune system to build some of the weapons that the bad guys use? So that they know what the weapons look like. Now if those bad guys try to sneak in and do damage, our guards and our immune system will recognize their weapons and know they're up to no good. But the invaders are going to do damage with those spikes. This alerts our guards to be ready to use their weapons, which are called antibodies, to prevent all of that from happening. Now remember, the way that we humans get the wanted posters, or in this case, instruction booklets into our bodies, is with the vaccine. So whether it's wanted posters or instruction booklets that help the guards know what to look for, the results, they're the same. The guards get valuable information that helps them protect the fortress. And that fortress, your body, stays strong and healthy. By the way, a scientist named Dr. Katalin Kariko has been studying MRNA for years. And it is her important work that made these new vaccines possible. Fun Science Demos would love to give a huge shout out to Dr. Kariko. Her research is saving lives through the COVID-19 vaccines. Science is so cool, especially when it saves lives. Thanks for watching.