COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects

Catching the Flu - Common Misconception

What I want you to do is think of common symptoms of getting the flu - headache, fatigue, fever, chills, body aches. Now what if I told you that the flu virus itself doesn't cause these symptoms, but these are caused by your own immune system as it fights infection. Would you believe me? Well, let me explain…

Once you're infected with the flu, the bug starts replicating itself within your cells. Your body is smart and can recognize there is a foreign invader floating around in your blood stream that shouldn't be there. It wants to get rid of the bug as soon as possible, and in order to do this, your body ramps up your immune system. The immune system is a collection of specialized cells that are mainly used in order to fight off anything that doesn't belong in your body, which in this case is the invading bug. Those same symptoms that we thought of before are due to your body's immune system being activated:

• Headache may occur for the redistribution of blood flow from the brain to the areas of your body where the bug is floating around in order to get the proper number of white blood cells in that area to kill the bug

• Fatigue and body aches are due to your body increasing its metabolic activities to a higher rate than normal to kill the bug. Doing this requires more energy than normal, which is why you burn through it at a quicker rate leading to feeling tired and achy

• Fever & Chills occur as a response to help optimize your body temperature in order for your immune system to work most efficiently at killing the bug

As you can see, all of the typical responses you think of as being sick is actually caused by your body's immune system

How does this relate to the covid 19 vaccines?

Immunity And COVID 19 Vaccines

The vaccines activate your immune system without you actually getting sick. You trick the body to ramping up your immune system in a very similar way to having an actual infection, but there's nothing that can actually cause an infection to occur. Think of a gun shooting blank bullets...It's a real gun with a real trigger that you can pull that elicits a real sound and effect of a gunshot, but there isn't a bullet inside the chamber that can actually cause harm

Vaccines are in fact designed to give your body the same immunity as if you had and fought off the actual bug, which in this case in COVID-19. Ramping up your immune system ultimately leads to the creation of antibodies that are present to kill the real coronavirus before it can replicate and cause any harm.

Side Effects

Condensing everything we just talked about, it would make sense then, that getting the COVID vaccine that is designed to ramp up your immune system would result in the same types of symptoms you would see gettin the actual coronavirus, but with a shorter duration (because it's not the actual thing). Looking at the most commonly reported side effects of these vaccines from the CDC we see: (list them off individually)

• Pain at the injection site and headache occur because your body again redistributes and increases blood flow to help the WBCs get to the area where the intruder enters, which in this case is your arm. Similarly when you cut yourself it gets red and swollen as this is a similar process

• Fever & Chills occur as a response to help optimize your body temperature in order for your immune system to work most efficiently at killing the bug

• Fatigue and body aches is due to your body increasing its metabolic activities higher than normal to kill the bug. Doing this requires more energy than normal, which is why you burn through it at a quicker rate

This is also typically why younger individuals, or those with a more robust immune system, have a more severe response in terms of the symptoms described before, although these types of symptoms vary from person to person

I want to reiterate that although these are obviously not fun to experience by any means and are technically considered side effects, these are signs that the vaccine is actually working in the method that it supposed to be.

Why don't we see these types of reactions with the flu vaccine? Because Covid vaccines ramp up your immune system really, really well in fact making them some of the most effective vaccines that have ever been created. Looking at the efficacy or effectiveness at some other vaccines from the CDC, we can see that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in particular are some of the most effective we've created and are even better than the mumps and chicken pox vaccinations.

Lastly, 0 deaths have been reported from the millions of vaccines given out thus far AS WELL AS in the control studies. This is from the CDC Website:

• “Over 76 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through March 1, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 1,381 reports of death (0.0018%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. CDC and FDA physicians review each case report of death as soon as notified and CDC requests medical records to further assess reports. A review of available clinical information including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records revealed no evidence that vaccination contributed to patient deaths. CDC and FDA will continue to investigate reports of adverse events, including deaths, reported to VAERS.”