COVID has had devastating impacts on individuals, families, and economic systems all over the world. On March 19, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared COVID to be a global pandemic. Since then, things have only gone downhill and don’t seem to be getting much better, despite the various reopenings that have occurred. Currently, there are approximately 41 million total cases worldwide, 1.13 million deaths, and 28 million that have recovered. Originally, there was nothing more that we could do to help with these statistics and in combating the spread of the virus other than quarantining and wearing masks.
Now however, the current development of a COVID vaccine has resurfaced the hope for many that things could potentially go back to normal sooner rather than later. Although we all hope for a rapid end to this pandemic and would like to be able to return to how things once were, we shouldn’t be so quick to put all our faith into this vaccine as there are still so many unknowns and potential things that could go wrong.
For starters, it could take a while before the vaccine is safe enough to use and is fully effective. Much like how other vaccines inject a weakened form of a virus in order to trigger an immune response, an AAMC article suggests that some of the current COVID vaccine efforts rely on “infusing messenger RNA molecules to produce a protein that sets off a cellular process that activates an immune response.” However, a lot could go wrong by injecting such a lethal virus into the human body, especially if someone hasn’t been predisposed to any form of the virus yet.
For someone who has not had any exposure to the virus, this could do more damage than good, and potentially give them the virus before their body is able to adapt and become immune. As a Scientific American article points out, “One serious adverse event per thousand of a vaccine given to 100 million people means harm to 100,000 otherwise healthy people,” which should not be a risk we are willing to take, at least not now with the recent uptick in cases.
Furthermore, there is also the phenomenon that the vaccine could “worsen the consequences of infection rather than protect,” mentions the Scientific American article. The article introduces the idea of antibody-dependant enhancement (ADE), claiming that it has been observed in previous COVID vaccine attempts and mentions that “antibodies typical of ADE are present in the blood of some COVID-19 patients,” which presents an obvious cause for concern.
In addition to the ADE present in the blood of some COVID-19 patients, the lessened effectiveness of vaccines in general amongst older patients as opposed to younger patients will prove to be problematic, especially since a majority of the people that are dying from COVID are older patients. In general, as we get older, we start developing a resistance to vaccines, which “begins early at age 30 and becomes progressively more profound with time,” the Scientific American article claims.
If this vaccine does not even work in favor of the age groups that constitute as a majority of the diseased population, does not have a certainty or guarantee that it will be effective, and poses a potential risk to transmit the disease to those who are currently healthy, then don’t these negative hypotheticals outweigh the minimal positive of a potential “cure?”
Article by Alexandra Doncheva of Richard Montgomery High School
Photo by May Pham of Walter Johnson High School