“How do vaccines work?”
That’s a good question, and an important one to be asking right now. What you first have to understand is how a body fights off a virus. A body fights off a virus using several different types of white blood cells. The three important ones are:
B-Lymphocytes
These white blood cells make antibodies that attack the germ remains left over by this next white blood cell.
Macrophages
white blood cells that digest germs and dying cells to produce antigens (traces of the germ that the body can identify and analyze as dangerous).
T-Lymphocyte
These ones are simple, all they do is attack infected cells in the body.
“Sounds like my white blood cells got it covered”
Unfortunately no, not only by not getting vaccinated do you become a risk to other people (See Herd Immunity), you become a risk to yourself. Aside from the obvious dangers dealing with the virus has, it’s shown that it also has the potential to weaken your immune system after dealing with it, making you more susceptible to getting the disease again, or getting another one, the only difference being this time around your body will have a lot harder time fighting it off.
Types of Vaccines
Protein Subunit Vaccines
Injects a harmless version of the virus (specifically the virus’s proteins) that your body learns how to fight. Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, unlike the viral vector, which gives you a weakened, harmless version of the virus. Protein subunits just give you bits and pieces of the virus.
mRNA Vaccines
This vaccine works similar to our macrophages in our body! The vaccine gives your body tools to make proteins to protect from the virus and understand how to better detect when the virus is in the body.
Viral Vector Vaccines
This vaccine injects a modified, harmless version of the virus into our body. Our body then analyses the virus and makes instructions for how to deal with the real thing.
Hello, my name is Alex Guigar. My pronouns are they/them. I go to Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia and the COVID TLDR is my senior project. I wanted to do my part in stopping the spread of misinformation surrounding the covid pandemic. I could wax poetic here about a sense of noble duty to keep the people informed and safe. Honestly, I was just tired of hearing the same repeated misinformation about what can be a deadly situation for people. I know people either can’t be bothered or maybe aren’t able to read a lot of the new information coming out, and either way I don’t really blame them. Not to repeat what I say in the website intro, but that stuff is really boring. Unfortunately, it’s super important too. So I made something to meet people in the middle, it’s a bunch of the really fundamental stuff about covid and the pandemic, boiled down and super informal. And, for the extra-achievers, sources to branch out into their own research. At the end of the day, all I want the COVID TLDR to be is an easy website where you can make a quick fact check, read up on something in a few seconds, or watch a quick cover video to get the basics of what’s going on before you go back to what you were doing. Hope you can find something informative and arm yourself with a little knowledge out there. Stay healthy and stay safe.
As outlined in 
People who haven’t gotten the vaccine yet are still at risk. Due to supply limits we are prioritizing the people most at risk to get the vaccine the quickest, that leaves the rest of us who are in the least amount of danger to keep each other out of danger. An article by UNC healthcare
(Asymptomatic means people with COVID who are not showing any symptoms, but can still pass on the virus). If what the UNC doesn’t convince you, check out what Doctor Fauci has said, the following quote comes from an interview