COVID-19 Vaccination Program in the USA

The Story so far

SARS-CoV-2, a novel coronavirus, is on its unstoppable march bringing the planet to a grinding halt with a new variety of pandemic, COVID-19. The year has witnessed unprecedented life changes and chaos affecting more than 88 million people worlds over and nearly 2 million fatalities, says data from John Hopkins University. The world is finally limping back to normalcy with renewed hope, the hope of a miracle vaccination program.

Never in the history of humanity has the disease caught the attention of a combined intellect in the whole world in a short period. Thousands of researchers have zeroed in on the containment of the virus. Vaccines produced at a break-neck pace; finally, it felt light at the end of the tunnel.

Dawn of a New Vaccine
“I didn’t feel any different from taking any other vaccine,” said Ms. Sara Lindsay, the New York nurse who was the first health worker to receive the jab.

Various countries worldwide have initiated their National Vaccination Programme under emergency authorization, intending to tackle the Covid-19 crisis effectively. The Pfizer BioNTech, a US-German pharma biotech combine, was the first Vaccine with an efficacy rate of 95 % protection to receive emergency use authorization from the US Foods and Drug Administration (FDA). Pfizer has agreed to supply 100 million doses of the Vaccine by march. It will take a few months until most US citizens receive the Vaccine. Another vaccine candidate, developed by Moderna and the National Institute of Health, is expected to get approval by regulators immediately. They will provide an additional 200 million Vaccine doses by the middle of the year, said a BBC report. US president Joe Biden had set a national immunization schedule goal whereby he intends to carry out 100 million vaccinations, i.e., a third of the US population, in his first 100 days in office.

What is Vaccination
Vaccination is an easy, secure, and efficient way of population health management to protect people from dangerous diseases. It utilizes your body’s natural immune system to resist specific pathogens, train the immune system to develop antibodies, and strengthen your immune function. Since vaccines only contain dead or weakened types of germs such as bacteria or viruses, they do not cause or put you at risk of illness or other related complications. An injection is the mode of vaccination in most cases, and otherwise, oral immunization.

Types of Vaccines and how they work
There are presently two main types of COVID-19 vaccines given Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the FDA – Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna—all developed using mRNA viral-vector technologies. When germs, such as the virus, enter the human body’s dark caverns, a warlike situation begins. Silent nanosized and cunning viral predators storm the body’s citadels: the cells, attack them, and multiply. The virus is fluctuating its spikes, coated with sugar, the molecule—to dupe the cells into believing what’s landing is safe. The camouflage works: cells pop open without giving the immune system a chance to act.

With the potent protein of its spikes, the virus breaks in to infect the cells. Within no time, virus particles appear in the victim’s blood. Warfare between humanity and pathogens has turned a new page in modern times.

Various types of white blood cells or immune cells in the blood fight infection in different ways: vaccines, containing material from the virus that causes COVID-19, gives instructions to the cells for producing a harmless protein unique to the virus. They destroy the genetic material from the Vaccine after our cells make copies of the protein. The body recognizes that the protein should not be there, build T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes to fight the virus that causes COVID-19 in the future.

After vaccination, it takes a few weeks for the body to produce T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes. So, a person with the virus could be infected just before or after vaccination. Most COVID-19 Vaccines Require More Than One-Shot. Centers for disease control and prevention (CDC) has issued details of the US COVID 19 vaccination program.

Side effects of the Vaccine
Experts in the field reject the possibility of severe adverse health problems as the Vaccine’s side effects. If any, side effects are limited to mild fever, fatigue, and headaches, but they should go away in two to three days. US media report says as part of expanded program on immunization; Health centers are planning a system of post-discharge monitoring of vaccinating health workers to account for any side effects. V-safe is a smartphone-based after vaccination monitoring tool developed by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)to detect any adverse issue related to the COVID-19 Vaccine. A COVID- 19 Vaccine cannot make you a covid patient since they contain no live virus.

Pros and cons of vaccination – To be or not to be
Is this fear of vaccination specific to Covid-19? Of course not. Protagonists against vaccination have been active for decades, supplemented by medical misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and false claims that have affected effective vaccination programs such as polio, BCG, and measles, even smallpox. Misinformation always travels faster than facts. After months of continuing suffering, the world community is finally seeing some hope. The choice is ours: to take the Vaccine, not to take it, get infected with Covid-19, or run away from it for the rest of our lives.

The famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud was apt when he remarked, “The most challenging thing is to bring satisfaction to humankind as they might even doubt happiness.”