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  • Writer's pictureNatalia Ramírez Comet
    • Sep 10
    • 3 min read

I took the COVID19 vaccine, was it safe?

I was frequently asked about the safeness of the COVID vaccine by my friends and family when the DNA and RNA-based vaccines were ready to be distributed amongst the population during the pandemic. My answer? I did not have a yes or no answer. Instead, I decided to share some videos in which I used drawings to explain to them what would need to happen for an RNA vaccine to become dangerous. 

 

I started by explaining to them how, in theory, the procedure with an RNA vaccine will look like. Once you have received the shot, the RNA of only one molecule of the covid virus (the famous spike!) will enter into some of your own cells. The cells will use this RNA, which is similar to a written instruction, to synthesize the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (which is the name of the virus causing the COVID-19 disease). This protein, the spike, will then be recognised as something strange by your defence system, as it is foreign to your body and will become activated against it. Your activated defence system will kill the cells synthesizing the spike. In addition, this system is able to keep a memory of the intruder they killed, and in the future, if your defence system would encounter the spike again (introduced by a real covid infection instead of a vaccination), it would be quicker to attack, and you would have less severe disease symptoms. 

 

What are the steps that could be dangerous?  

 

  1. The RNA is retrotranscribed into DNA 

    For a cell to become a problem, i.e. tumorigenic, a change needs to happen in its DNA. The DNA are the main instructions in our cells. They are translated into RNA, which can then be read for the synthesis of proteins, which are the molecules that do all the functions in our cells.  

    Could DNA be modified by RNA vaccines? For that to happen the RNA would need to be inserted into our DNA. This could only happen if the RNA is translated back to DNA. For this to be possible, special proteins, usually only carried by viruses, are needed.  Humans have acquired some of these special proteins through evolution, but the risk of them being activated is very low. 


  2. The retrotranscribed RNA is inserted in an important part of the human DNA 

    Even if the RNA from the vaccine would be translated into DNA, for it to cause a tumour it would need to be inserted in very specific locations in the DNA. 


  3. The modified cells are not killed by our defence system 

    This would only be a problem if the DNA has been inserted in a non-coding region, and the spike protein is not synthesised by the modified cell, leading to our defence system not recognising and killing it.  

 

As you may understand, RNA vaccines could theoretically go wrong, but it is not very probable as you would need a combination of these three steps for it to go wrong, and it would need to happen soon after vaccination, as RNA is quickly degraded in our body. 

  

So, if you like me, were not part of the population with a higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes, was it a good idea to get vaccinated? 

 

Firstly, we couldn't be certain that we wouldn't face serious consequences or even death from a COVID-19 infection simply because we were part of the younger population. COVID-19 did not only claim the lives of people over sixty; it affected individuals of all ages. 

Additionally, the success of vaccination relies considerably in herd immunity. The transferring of the infection decreases when the majority of the population is vaccinated and carry the virus for a shorter period of time (as our trained defence system will kill the virus faster).  

Finally, it has been estimated that approximately 1,6 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccination, and that the cases of adverse events, (mainly cardiovascular adverse events) were low.  

 

After hugging and kissing my grandmother again, not worrying about my parents socialising and enjoying their deserved retirement, and, overall, witnessing the end of the tragedy lived in many countries, I can say that it was worth it to get vaccinated. 



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