The lessons learned in developing the COVID-19 vaccine could be used to fight other diseases in the future. State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box believes the technology has “opened a new door to vaccinations.”
“The fact that we can actually produce them much more quickly. We don’t have to wait to grow them and hope that we grow the right strains and the right immunizations against those strains,” Box said during a press conference last week. “So I think that this is, if we try to make some lemonade out of the lemons associated with this COVID-19 pandemic, it would be that new technology has arisen from this, and it’s going to make a huge difference.”
Unlike other vaccines that expose the body to a weakened form of a virus, mRNA vaccines, like Pfizer’s and Moderna’s, teach cells to make a spike protein that triggers an immune response. While it’s a new approach to vaccination, the CDC says researchers have been studying this method for decades.
To learn more about the different types of COVID-19 vaccines and how they work, visit the CDC website.
