I’m sure you’re tired of it. After all, COVID-19 is still raging and we hear of people having it on almost a daily basis. Fortunately, most of us have either been vaccinated or had it–so the vast majority of people recover.
You might wonder why. Don’t the vaccinations work? Is it even worth getting a booster? As a Ph.D. immunologist, I can explain with a little understood fact: VACCINATION DOES NOT PREVENT INFECTION.
“Whoa,” I hear you say, “You’re crazy! Even if I might question getting a COVID vaccine, I do know that the shots I’ve had protect me from tetanus, diphtheria, polio, measles, etc.” You are right. They do.
Allow me to clarify. Vaccination does not create an invisible germ-specific force field around an individual (like Ready Brek claimed). What it does is ensure that, when a person does encounter a particular germ, they will fight it off before it can cause disease. But, to fight it, they must become infected. Otherwise, their immune system won’t “see” the invader and respond. Chances are the person will neither notice getting infected nor their immune system fighting and winning. But it does happen.
This is a good thing: it means that our immune system is forever strengthening its response to each germ type: every time it “sees” a type of germ, it will make its recognition of it even stronger and specific. So, every time people who’ve been vaccinated or previously infected get COVID, they are, as it were, getting a booster shot. We are probably getting re-exposed to the virus again and again through our social interactions. So those who have any immunity to COVID will become more and more immune the more often that they are exposed. That’s how the immune system works. And I think that’s super-cool.