COVID vaccination. Seven common myths about the coronavirus shot

It has been proven that COVID vaccines approved by the Ministry of Health are safe and contain no foreign substances.

54.6% of Ukrainians as of November 2021 did not intend to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Most often the reason is distrust of vaccines: the belief that the shot carries more risks than COVID-19 itself, reports UP. Zhyttia in a joint article with the Ministry of Health.

The fears about vaccines are completely varied, ranging from fear of serious side effects to the belief that the COVID shot is a way to "microchip" the population and establish total control.

However, 99.99% of negative information about vaccines is myth. Here are the top seven myths about the COVID shot.

Vaccines cause magnetism

"Have you seen this? Got vaccinated against the coronavirus today. I held a spoon to the injection site and it stuck! It's definitely from the vaccine. There are heavy metals in it that cause magnetism!" You have likely come across one of these posts, even with "video evidence," somewhere on social media.

But this story is a myth.

"COVID-19 vaccines do not contain ingredients that can create an electromagnetic field at the injection site. None of the COVID-19 vaccines contain metals",  said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States.

The vaccines also do not contain electrodes, semiconductors or other things that could cause this effect.

The Ministry of Health has long published the composition of all vaccines used in Ukraine. And there are no substances in them that could turn a person into a magnet.

The vaccine causes fertility problems

"I was advised not to get vaccinated because I am young, have no children, and then the vaccine would stop me from getting pregnant." Such fears are one of the reasons young women refuse vaccination. However, these fears have been refuted by more than one study.

To date, there is no evidence that any vaccines, in particular those against COVID-19, cause fertility problems or infertility in women or men.

A recent study found no differences in successful pregnancy rates between women who had antibodies from a COVID vaccine or from a recent infection and women who had no antibodies.

A report based on data from the v-safe monitoring system in the United States showed that 4,800 people became pregnant shortly after receiving the first dose of an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna).

The CDC, on the contrary, recommends COVID-19 vaccination for people planning a pregnancy.

In Ukraine, pregnant women are already advised to get the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine.

The vaccine changes DNA

"If I get vaccinated, I'll become a mutant. Nobody knows what will happen to my body."

On the one hand, such a fear is understandable, because mRNA vaccines were at one point called "genetic" since they contain genetic instructions that help the body develop immunity. On the other hand, this claim simply resembles a plot from science fiction films.

COVID-19 vaccines in no way alter DNA and do not interact with it, the CDC explains.

mRNA vaccines deliver to our cells a kind of instruction (genetic material) that helps create protection against the virus, which causes COVID-19.

After the body produces an immune response, it rejects all the vaccine ingredients in the same way it rejects any information the cells no longer need. This process is part of the body's normal functioning.

The genetic material delivered by mRNA vaccines never enters the cell nucleus, where your DNA is stored.

Immunologist Fedor Lapiy explained how the mechanism of mRNA vaccines works, using recipes for Lviv-style cheese pancakes as an example:

"Imagine: you want to eat Lviv-style cheese pancakes every day, but you can't remember the amounts and order of the ingredients. So you take a separate recipe for Lviv-style cheese pancakes. You put it in front of you and every day you come and look at how to make them

The mRNA contained in the vaccine is a specific recipe for building immunity, which lies in front of you on the work surface. The work surface is the ribosomes, where the spike protein is assembled according to this recipe.

By creating an immune response to this spike protein, the component of the virus that enables it to attach to the cell surface, the virus will not be able to attach to the cell."

The vaccine causes the virus to mutate

"The virus mutates precisely because people are getting vaccinated."

No. The CDC explains that COVID-19 vaccines do not create and do not lead to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus variants.

New variants of the virus emerge because the virus that causes COVID-19 constantly changes as a result of the natural process of mutation.

The likelihood of new virus mutations rises along with the growth in new cases of the disease, says infectious disease specialist Yevgeny Shcherbina.

"Broadly speaking, the more people get sick, the greater the likelihood of a new mutation.

We know that a vaccine reduces the likelihood that a person will get sick, and mass vaccination reduces the total number of new cases of the disease.

From this it can be concluded that vaccination does not increase but reduces the likelihood of new strains of the virus emerging",  says Shcherbina.

In other words, high vaccination coverage reduces the spread of the virus and helps prevent the emergence of new variants.

COVID vaccines contain microchips

"Total microchipping of the population is taking place. I will resist the system and will not get vaccinated." COVID-19 vaccines do not contain microchips. They were developed to fight diseases, not to track our movements, the CDC explains.

Vaccines work by stimulating the immune system to produce antibodies. After vaccination, we only develop immunity to the disease.

"The theory that chips are introduced through a vaccine is no better than the theory of a 'flat Earth': it is completely meaningless and does not withstand any criticism," says infectious disease specialist Yevgeny Shcherbina.

And no matter how much we might want to exchange messages through a vaccinated arm with Bill Gates, we definitely cannot do that with vaccines.

You can catch COVID-19 from the vaccine

"I got a vaccine shot and a few days later I got sick." None of the COVID-19 vaccines approved in Ukraine contain live virus that causes COVID-19, so it is impossible to catch the coronavirus from a vaccine.

Yevgeny Shcherbina
infectious disease specialist

Vaccines contain either another non-pathogenic virus (adenovirus) with the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 "attached" to it, or an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 virus broken into pieces, or simply an "instruction for assembling the spike protein" in the form of mRNA. None of the listed options can cause a full-fledged disease.

COVID-19 vaccines teach our immune system to recognize the virus that causes COVID-19 and fight it. Sometimes during this process symptoms appear, such as a rise in body temperature or headache, which at first glance may seem like signs of illness.

However, these symptoms are normal, and they are a sign that the vaccine is working.

After immunization, memory cells remain in the body, which will help resist the disease in the future. However, developing such memory cells takes time, the Ministry of Health explains.

That is why it sometimes happens that people manage to become infected shortly before or after vaccination, because their immunity has not yet developed.

"Also, after vaccination a person's PCR test result cannot be positive",  adds the infectious disease specialist.

Natural immunity to COVID-19 is better than vaccine immunity

"I'd rather get sick than inject something. And I'll have excellent immunity." Vaccination against COVID-19 is a safer and more reliable way to gain immunity to COVID-19 than having COVID-19.

The COVID shot produces a more predictable immune response than infection with the coronavirus, the CDC explains.

One study of COVID-19 in the United States among people previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 shows that unvaccinated people are more than twice as likely to be reinfected with COVID-19 as those who were fully vaccinated.

Another study shows that unvaccinated people who have recovered from COVID-19 are 5 times more likely to be reinfected compared with vaccinated people who had not previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

According to the Electronic Health System, in Ukraine from August to October, 94% of COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized had not completed the full course of vaccination.

The disease is also especially dangerous for people in risk groups.

The following are at high risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19:

• people aged 60 and over;
• people with concomitant diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular and oncological diseases;
• those who have daily contact with a large number of people, such as medical workers, teachers and employees of government bodies.

During the pandemic, more than 86 thousand people have died from the coronavirus disease in Ukraine. 82% of all COVID-19 deaths in Ukraine are people over 60 years old.