@hotvickkrishna
How the mRNA vaccine works #fyp #comedy #skit # covid19 #mrna #coronavirus #vaccine #howitworks
♬ Original sound – hotvickkrishna
We’ve heard a lot about the term “mRNA vaccine” lately, but that doesn’t mean we all understand (with our hands up) what it means or how this type of vaccine works. So I’m 100 percent here to explain actor Vick Krishna’s TikTok explainer how exactly COVID-19 mRNA vaccines work in the body. It’s dramatic, funny, and – if we check against the CDC mRNA vaccine explanation – factually correct.
Put simply, mRNA vaccines are different from most vaccines we’re used to in that they don’t introduce a weakened or inactivated germ into our body to trigger an immune response. Instead, they teach our cells how to make a protein, or a piece of protein, which then sets off an immune response that protects us when the real virus enters our body. The Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines both use this method.
So, is Krishna’s TikTok doing it right? Let’s go scene by scene. First we see the mRNA coming in with “instructions” telling the ribosome of an immune cell to make a spike protein (also known as “forked hands” in TikTok). According to the CDC, this is correct; The task of the mRNA is to instruct the cells to produce these spike proteins, which are harmless in themselves but are located on the surface of the SARS-COV-2 virus. Once the mRNA message is conveyed and the proteins are made, the cell destroys the mRNA, which we see in the TikTok in an epically dramatized way when the mRNA shrinks and perishes in a cloud of fog (love it).
The body’s own immune system sees the new protein (the body shows the spike proteins on the surface of the immune cells), recognizes that it doesn’t belong, and makes the right antibodies to fight the new, unknown antigen. To convey this in TikTok, Krishna portrays an antibody with special hands that can recognize and fight the “fork-handed” COVID-19 particles. When the actual SARS-COV-2 virus enters the body, the immune system is ready to use its COVID-19 antibodies, which successfully fight and destroy the virus.
So yeah, this TikTok is checking out. On Twitter, where the clip is quickly going viral, an emergency doctor called it “the best explanation I’ve seen for how mRNA vaccines work!” And we’re fixated on anything that helps us get into our heads a powerful new vaccine that people around the world are already receiving.
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