I've been offered the local AstraZeneca vaccine through work.

It's tempting to get it as it's better than nothing at preventing serious disease from the Wuhan virus.

Though, I think I'll wait for the Moderna vaccine which should be available at private Thai hospitals in a few month's time — October at the latest, apparently.

Besides the fact that there are reported serious (rare) side effects from AstraZeneca, it (along with sinovac) has a much lower protection rate against the variants, from what I've read.

I've been doing a bit of a deep dive on the various vaccines.

It seems the sinovac vaccine does well against the wuhan virus but is lacking when it comes to the variants, especially the south African one.

AstraZeneca does better because the technology is on a higher level.

Though it's still not as good as the mRNA vaccines which produces a cellular reaction, i.e the "mRNA is recognized by cells as ‘pathogen’ stimulating a strong immune response" — meaning that unlike inactivated virus vaccines like sinovac which teach the body to look for "that guy" and kill him, mRNA vaccines teach the body to remember his hair, his teeth, his ears, so when he disguises himself with new variants, the body will kill him too with CD8+ T cells, which hide out in the bone marrow.

I'm guessing it will take wide use of mRNA vaccines to get the virus under control as so far there haven't been any countries who have done it with a Chinese vaccine — Seychelles tried.

Though, maybe it will take just a higher percent of the population being vaccinated with an inactivated virus vaccine or viral vector vaccine to get the same herd immunity response as the mRNA vaccines.




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Inactivated virus vaccines (includes killed particles of the virus): Sinovac

Viral vector vaccines (delivers the wuhan virus gene in a harmless monkey virus): AstraZeneca

mRNA vaccines (delivers a molecule with genetic instructions to develop a distinctive spike protein): Moderna, Pfizer


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https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2102214


May 20, 2021

A two-dose regimen of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine did not show protection against mild-to-moderate Covid-19 due to the B.1.351 variant. (Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04444674. opens in new tab; Pan African Clinical Trials Registry number, PACTR202006922165132. opens in new tab).

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AstraZeneca Vaccine Fails To Protect Against The South African Variant, Says Study

Two doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine were found to have only a 10.4% efficacy against mild-to-moderate infections caused by the B.1.351 South Africa variant, according to a phase 1b-2 clinical trial published on Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Doctor urges Pfizer, Moderna vaccine to fight B.1.351 variant | Thaiger

Doctor urges Pfizer, Moderna vaccine to fight B.1.351 variant
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Inactivated virus vaccines: Sinovac
Viral vector vaccines\: AstraZeneca
RNA vaccines: Moderna, Pfizer
From WHO: https://www.who.int/docs/default-sou...rsn=b11be994_4