What's in the COVID vaccine?

GUS: You're listening to Brains On! where we're serious about being curious.

PRESENTER: Brains On! is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

KARA: Oh, it's perfect. They haven't started yet.

GILLY: OK, quick, let's get going before they do.

KARA: I'm Kara.

GILLY: And I'm Gilly.

KARA: We're two viruses with a dream and a microphone.

GILLY: We share it.

KARA: That's right. This is--

KARA AND GILLY: Going Viral with Kara and Gilly.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

KARA: OK, hoombooms, we're not going to do our usual top of the show chitty chatty, catchy uppy because, I never thought I'd say this, but we don't need any more attention.

GILLY: We love the sounds of our voices as much as you do.

KARA: (SINGING) Our voices are like beautiful baby birds--

GILLY: OK, OK. Yeah, they get it, Kare Bear. Anyway, viruses are getting too much attention these days. Everyone's out there giving tips on how to sanitize.

KARA: Ugh!

GILLY: How to mask and stay distanced, so we can't spread.

KARA: Gross!

GILLY: Making new vaccines to fight us.

KARA: The worst!

GILLY: And studying us more to learn our deepest, darkest secrets.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

KARA: Those aren't for you.

GILLY: Yeah, it's not great. So we're going to step back from the pod for a bit.

KARA: Do all that self-care stuff we've been putting off, just taking care of us for a while.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Tell me what she's got

GILLY: But don't worry, we will be back. Refreshed and renewed and focused on how to get our viral message out to the world.

- But thanks for listening, viralinos. We couldn't do it without you.

- Until we get back, you can support us on our ickstarter.

KARA: Or not. We just appreciate you. For real, we love you, viralinos.

GILLY: And remember--

KARA: Stay infecty!

GILLY: And don't get sanitized.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

OK, if you put the Brains On! music now, they'll never know we were here.

KARA: Smart.

[THEME MUSIC]

MOLLY BLOOM: You're listening to Brains On! from American Public Media. I'm Molly Bloom, and my co-host once again is Gus from Seattle. Hi, Gus.

GUS: Hello.

MOLLY BLOOM: So we know some of our listeners are back in the classroom after a long time of not being in the classroom. And others are back on lockdown. So depending on where you live, things can feel pretty different right now. So, Gus, how would you say things are feeling in Seattle?

GUS: They're feeling pretty good. It's definitely very cold. We got a foot of snow the other day. I feel like things are better than before, but we're still online. And I went sledding the other day, obviously, because a foot of snow. And I've also been feeding the crows a lot.

MOLLY BLOOM: What about it feels better than before?

GUS: I feel like I'm not as panicked as before. I mean, I wasn't that worried before, but it's like-- it just feels better now.

MOLLY BLOOM: Do you think you can pinpoint that to something happening?

GUS: Probably the vaccines made it feel a lot better.

MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, because it sort of feels like something's happened, something is changing. It's not just the same never-ending waiting that was going on before.

GUS: Yeah.

MOLLY BLOOM: So this moment has felt hard for people because vaccines have been approved, but it's still going to take several more months before everyone who wants one is able to get it. So there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but we're just not out of it quite yet. And my husband described it like this. So you're on a plane, and the plane has landed, but you're just sitting on the runway waiting for a gate to open up so you can get off the plane.

And people are getting pretty antsy because they just want to get to the gate. And some people are trying to stand up, but the flight attendant is on the speaker, asking people to stay seated and keep their seat belt on until we actually get to the gate. And the door opens.

PILOT: Thank you for flying, COVID Air.

MOLLY BLOOM: And I think that's pretty accurate. I think that's kind of what it feels like for me right now. Does that ring true for what it feels like for you, Gus, or does it feel different than that?

GUS: Yeah, that sounds kind of accurate. You know how sometimes when you get up in the morning, your feet or your legs are all tingly and it's hard to walk and stuff, but you have to wait like an hour for them to start working good? Kind of like that.

MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, I can see that. It can be hard. But like we talked about back in October, this is a historic time we're all living through, and people all over the world are being affected by it. Many of us have lost loved ones, and many people are experiencing grief, which is how we describe the big feelings that come with big loss.

GUS: You're not going through this alone. And remember that we're all living through something that our parents and grandparents have never gone through before.

MOLLY BLOOM: It's been just about a year. We've had a pandemic version of every holiday.

GUS: Everyone has had a pandemic birthday.

MOLLY BLOOM: And some of us are coming up on our second pandemic birthdays.

GUS: This is not the year anyone was planning for.

MOLLY BLOOM: You've done hard things this year, and we are really, really proud of you.

GUS: Even though this has been going on for a year, we still have a lot of questions. And you do too.

MOLLY BLOOM: So we're going to start by answering this one.

OLIVER: Hello, my name is Oliver from Baltimore, Maryland. My question is, how does the COVID-19 vaccine work and what is inside of it?

GUS: Brains On! producer, Menaka Wilhelm, is here to take a peek inside.

MENAKA WILHELM: Hello, to answer that question, we're going to need to zoom.

GUS: Like video Zoom? Another call?

MENAKA WILHELM: Oh, thankfully, no. We have plenty of that kind of Zoom these days. We're going to be zoom ray zooming. Zoom ray ready.

ZOOM RAY: Zoom, zoom.

MENAKA WILHELM: Perfect. And before we zoom, a quick recap of how these vaccines work.

MOLLY BLOOM: Vaccines help protect your body against germs by exposing your immune system to a tiny bit of a germ or a weakened version of it. Your body sees this tiny, harmless version of the germ and learns how to destroy it without you getting very sick from it.

GUS: And then, if your body ever encounters the real version of the germ, your body remembers it and is ready to fight it off right away.

MENAKA WILHELM: Without a vaccine, your body takes a while to recognize the germ and then fight it off, and in that time, you might get sick. So that's why vaccines are terrific. They give your body a practice run at handling a germ. Your immune system learns what to do, and you don't get super sick.

GUS: That's what the COVID vaccines do. The two that have been approved in the US so far are a kind of vaccine called mRNA vaccines.

MOLLY BLOOM: The M and mRNA stands for messenger. These vaccines carry a message that tells your cells to make a tiny protein found on the spike of the coronavirus.

MENAKA WILHELM: When your body sees these spike proteins, it fights them off and develops antibodies against them.

GUS: So if the real coronavirus shows up in your body, your immune system will remember those proteins and attack the virus before it has a chance to make you very sick.

MOLLY BLOOM: Meanwhile, once your body gets that message, the mRNA from the vaccine gets destroyed. We use mRNA for all kinds of stuff in our cells, and we have special proteins that break down mRNA into tiny little bits.

MENAKA WILHELM: And are you ready for something really cool? These vaccines are designed to give you a better immune response than the one that you'd have against an infection. So when you get a vaccine, you're prepared in like a turbocharged way. That's also why the vaccines are even helpful for people who might have already had COVID-19. Cool, right?

GUS: Super cool.

MENAKA WILHELM: Another cool thing is that mRNA is teensy, teensy, teensy tiny. So how do they get it in the vaccine? Let's find out. We'll zoom in on this glass vial of the vaccine. Ready?

GUS: Yeah.

ZOOM RAY: Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom.

MENAKA WILHELM: So you can see this file is full of liquid. And in the liquid is itty bitty vaccine mRNA. And the mRNA is all wrapped in tiny fat bubbles. Those bubbles protect it in its journey into your cells.

GUS: Like a bubble wrap.

MENAKA WILHELM: Precisely. The tiny fat bubbles are like a really special version of bubble wrap, and they're protecting a pretty fragile molecule. That's the mRNA. It needs to be in tip-top shape when it's time to tell your cells what to do.

MOLLY BLOOM: Anything else in there?

MENAKA WILHELM: Besides the fat bubbles, and the mRNA, there's a little bit of water and a tiny bit of sugar and some special salts and acids. Sugar keeps the fat bubbles from sticking together, and then the salts and acids make sure that the vaccine blends in well when it gets into your body. Our insides are salty. Are you ready to zoom in on that mRNA itself?

MOLLY BLOOM: Sure.

ZOOM RAY: Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom.

MENAKA WILHELM: All right. So the mRNA, the crown jewel of this vaccine.

GUS: Wow, so this little string of molecules tells your body to make coronavirus spike proteins?

MENAKA WILHELM: Yeah, and it came from a super clean vaccine making factory. Vaccine makers cook up this mRNA in bucket shaped vats. And actually, it only takes a tiny bit of mRNA to make each vaccine dose. So those vats aren't necessarily that big. Some hold around 10 gallons, which is about the size of a fish tank. And a vat that size holds the recipe for many, many doses of the vaccine.

MOLLY BLOOM: I bet that's quite a recipe.

MENAKA WILHELM: Definitely. And not quite as delicious as baked Alaska, but certainly as complicated. Making a vaccine is a little bit less hands-on than making a cake at home. Scientists and engineers have set up this vaccine recipe so that lots of stuff happens because of machines and molecules.

GUS: So the scientists aren't stirring up batches of vaccines one at a time?

MENAKA WILHELM: Nope. And using machines and molecules more than human hands makes things go faster. It also keeps everything cleaner. So inside those vaccine making vats, scientists use enzymes, which are special proteins, to make the mRNA from its ingredient molecules. The raw materials for mRNA are these molecules called nucleotides.

So in one of those vats, they mix together nucleotides, enzymes and other compounds that help the enzymes do their job. Then, enzymes do the work of putting the mRNA together, because that's just how those enzymes react with all of those other ingredients. It's a little bit like how when you put a cake into the oven, your cake starts out as a liquid and then over time becomes a cake. All thanks to the way that those ingredients react together.

MOLLY BLOOM: How long does it take to make that recipe of mRNA?

MENAKA WILHELM: Making the mRNA takes a little bit less than a week, which sounds really fast but that's just one part of making the vaccine. So there's also a lot of steps to set up the mRNA recipe. And then after the mRNA is done, special mixers whip everything up so that you get those tiny fat bubbles around the mRNA.

GUS: And of course, the vaccines also have to go into their little vials.

MENAKA WILHELM: Of course. Also, a really big part of this process is double checking mixers and machines at different steps. So vaccine makers follow a bit of their recipe and then double check it before they move on. And the double checks often take longer than the recipe steps, but that's a good thing overall. It's super important to be sure that every part of this process is happening exactly the way that it's supposed to.

GUS: So that's why it takes a couple of months to get those batches of vaccine from start to finish?

MENAKA WILHELM: Exactly. And the batches are pretty big like millions of doses. Speaking of big, are you ready to zoom back out?

MOLLY BLOOM: Yes.

ZOOM RAY: Zoom.

MENAKA WILHELM: Nothing like the zoom ray. These mRNA vaccines are pretty clever. They use a messenger molecule that our bodies know really well to teach us how to fight off the coronavirus, but there are other vaccines coming out soon, too.

MOLLY BLOOM: They use slightly different tools to train your body, so the recipe for each vaccine is a little different.

MENAKA WILHELM: For each vaccine, scientists have set up a super special recipe. They've got molecules that will react to make bits of the vaccine that they need, and then machines that mix and separate and package the vaccine safely. Setting everything up to make these vaccines is definitely a big process, but people are working on it around the clock every day.

GUS: Thanks, Menaka.

MENAKA WILHELM: Nice zooming. Bye.

RECORDING: Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba Brains On!

MOLLY BLOOM: OK, Gus, here's something we don't need a zoom ray to understand. It's time for the--

RECORDING: (WHISPERING) Shh, mystery sound.

MOLLY BLOOM: Here it is.

[WHIRRING, CLICKING]

All right, Gus, and what is your guess?

GUS: I think maybe reeling in a fishing rod or something.

MOLLY BLOOM: Really nice guess. What about the sound made it think that?

GUS: I thought I heard the wind. So I thought they were outside. And I heard the clicking and the spinning of the lever that you pull.

MOLLY BLOOM: We'll be back with the answer and give you another chance to guess a little later in the show.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

GUS: We're working on an episode all about time travel, and we want to hear from you.

MOLLY BLOOM: If you could time travel to any time past or future, when would it be? So, Gus, what do you think? When would you travel to?

GUS: I would probably travel to right now because I wouldn't want to start a space time continuum.

MOLLY BLOOM: [LAUGHS] So you're worried about the ramifications of time travel?

GUS: Yeah, I don't want to tear the very fabric of the universe.

MOLLY BLOOM: OK, wise, wise. Well, record your answer and send it to us at brainson.org/contact.

GUS: And while you're there, you can send us your questions, mystery sounds and drawings, too.

MOLLY BLOOM: That's where we got this question.

DAVID: Hi, my name is David.

EMMETT: And I'm Emmett.

DAVID: We're from Boston, New York, and we are wondering--

EMMETT: What foods do the scientists in Antarctica eat?

MOLLY BLOOM: We'll be back with an answer to that during our Moment of Um and read the most recent group of listeners to be added to the Brains Honor Roll all at the end of the show.

GUS: So keep listening.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You're listening to Brains On! from American Public Media. I'm Gus.

MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly. And it's time for us to answer this question.

LIRON: My name is Liron and from Potomac, Maryland. My question is, does the COVID-19 vaccine protect people against other viruses, too?

KATHERINE WU: Yeah, it's a good question and actually a really complicated one.

GUS: That's Katherine Wu.

MOLLY BLOOM: She's a science journalist for The Atlantic.

KATHERINE WU: I'd say at this point, there's not really evidence for that yet, not because there's evidence of the absence of that happening, but just because people haven't really been looking. All the focus has been on whether these vaccines prevent the disease that they were designed for, which is COVID-19.

MOLLY BLOOM: But it's become very clear that the other tools we've been using to fight the coronavirus--

GUS: Distancing, staying home, wearing masks, washing our hands.

MOLLY BLOOM: --have definitely been protecting us against other viruses.

GUS: Hardly anyone has gotten sick with the flu this year.

MOLLY BLOOM: And fewer people are getting the rhinoviruses that cause colds, too.

KATHERINE WU: It's just been this giant natural experiment that I think people are going to be studying for years and years and years to come.

GUS: But it doesn't mean we're done with the flu forever.

MOLLY BLOOM: The virus is still out there, and eventually, as we're masking and distancing, less, more people will start getting the flu again.

KATHERINE WU: So when flu viruses do come back, we can think back to this year and think about how effective it is to wash your hands, how effective it is to put on a mask when you're feeling not well, or when you're worried that you're going to be in a group of a lot of people and there are viruses circulating around. How important it is to stay home when you're not feeling well, and that you can protect not just you, but the people around you by staying away when you know that there's an infection circulating around.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MOLLY BLOOM: OK, Gus, are you ready to go back to that mystery sound?

GUS: Yeah.

MOLLY BLOOM: All right, here it is again.

[WHIRRING, CLICKING]

All right, Gus, any new thoughts? Last time you thought it was reeling in a fishing line.

GUS: Yes, I think that's still the best guess I have.

MOLLY BLOOM: All right, well, let's hear the answer.

CLARA: Hi, my name is Clara, and I'm from Vienna, Virginia. That was the sound of me casting out a fishing line, and reeling it back in. I recorded that sound in a rowboat on Swago Pond in Pennsylvania. I like to fish from a rowboat or the dock, or maybe even sometimes a stand up paddle board. If you get hot, you can dive into the water and swim around.

GUS: Yay. Ba-ba-da-ba-ba-ba. I'm still on my win streak.

MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, you are. That was really impressive. I thought maybe it was a scooter or something. I was not close to that.

GUS: I only have three more guesses to get right until I get to go to the mystery sound factory.

MOLLY BLOOM: [LAUGHS]

RECORDING: Brains On! On! On!

MOLLY BLOOM: As of February 22, over 19 million people in the US have been fully vaccinated.

GUS: Right now, two vaccines are approved in the US, and more are likely to be approved in the coming weeks and months.

MOLLY BLOOM: As scientists and journalists and politicians talk about how well these vaccines work, a lot of numbers get thrown around, and it's difficult to understand them.

GUS: So we talked to someone who can help us get answers.

MARIA SUNDARAM: My name is Maria Sundaram. I'm an infectious disease epidemiologist, and I'm also what's called a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto.

MOLLY BLOOM: So let's take the Pfizer mRNA vaccine as an example. It's said to be 95% effective.

GUS: You might think that means it protects 95% of the people who get the vaccine.

MOLLY BLOOM: Or you might think that you have a 5% chance of getting COVID if you get the vaccine, but that's not it at all. For a vaccine that's 95% effective, the numbers show that just a fraction of 1% of people who were vaccinated got sick. Way less than 5%.

MARIA SUNDARAM: We're talking about the number of people who might get sick among the people who do get the vaccine, and people who don't get the vaccine. 95% of the cases that would have happened in the group of people who didn't get the vaccine didn't happen in the group of people who did get the vaccine.

MOLLY BLOOM: This means if you get the vaccine, you are 95% less likely to get COVID than someone who didn't get the vaccine.

GUS: This kind of math is called statistics, and it's a little bit tricky to wrap your head around.

MOLLY BLOOM: When they did the clinical trial for the vaccine--

GUS: Listen to our last coronavirus episode for more on clinical trials.

MOLLY BLOOM: --they gave half of the people in the trial the actual vaccine, and the other half got a placebo, which is a shot designed to do absolutely nothing. It's made of salt water. And the scientists running the clinical trial closely monitor how these volunteers are doing.

MARIA SUNDARAM: Yeah. So normally, when you sign up to be a participant in a clinical trial, you get a diary that they ask you to write down basically how you're feeling as often as possible. And so sometimes this is daily, sometimes it's weekly. But they want you to write down, hey, I have a slight headache today, or hey, I'm feeling a little feverish today, or hey, today I'm great. And there's nothing wrong with me at all.

When we do clinical trials, we're very closely following how people are feeling and how they're doing for quite a long time. So we're even asking people like months and months later, hey, how are you still doing? How is that second dose for you? I know it's been three months since you got the second dose. How are you feeling today?

And that kind of stuff is really, really important because we not only want to know about the safety and effectiveness in the shorter term around when we're getting the vaccine, but we also want to know long-term, is it helping you? And also, are you still feeling good?

MOLLY BLOOM: So let's go back to that 95% number and see where it comes from.

GUS: There were about 42,000 people in the Pfizer trial.

MOLLY BLOOM: So imagine a stadium full of people.

GUS: Half the stadium is wearing purple jackets representing the vaccine team.

[FANS CHANTING]

MOLLY BLOOM: The other half of the stadium is wearing yellow jackets, representing the placebo team.

[FANS CHANTING]

Now, there was one of those giveaways today at the game where everyone gets cool swag to rep their team.

GUS: The vaccine team got awesome purple umbrella hats to match their jackets, you know, those tiny little umbrellas that sit on your head? They're adorable.

MOLLY BLOOM: The placebo team got sweatbands. A good look, but no real protection for their heads.

GUS: OK, so this stadium is near the ocean, and there's a lot of seagulls flying overhead.

MOLLY BLOOM: And when they're flying, sometimes seagulls poop. For our analogy, seagull poop is like COVID.

GUS: During the game, 172 fans of the placebo team, the ones wearing the stylish yet ineffective sweatbands, got seagull poop on their heads because the sweatbands didn't do anything. That's like six rows of stadium seats full of people who got poop on their heads.

MOLLY BLOOM: But the lucky vaccine team with the beautiful purple umbrella hats, those hats actually covered their heads, so only nine of them got poop on their heads. That's nine people out of 21,000 team vaccine fans.

GUS: Less than one row of seats. Those umbrella hats really work.

MOLLY BLOOM: So a total of 181 people got seagull poop on their heads during the game, and 95% of them were wearing the team placebo sweatpants. So that's where we get that 95% number. Scientists use that same math for all the vaccines.

GUS: And remember, behind all of these statistics are real people.

MARIA SUNDARAM: Tens of thousands of people agreed to be participants in these clinical trials, and that made the enrollment for the clinical trials really fast. And that's really, really, really incredible. If people said, no, I don't want to be a part of this, that would have meant that we would have waited a lot longer for a vaccine.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

GUS: We're all in this pandemic together. We're still living through history.

MOLLY BLOOM: So we're keeping our distance, wearing masks and staying home.

GUS: Because we know those things work against the coronavirus. They've lowered flu cases, too.

MOLLY BLOOM: And some things are starting to change a little. More people are getting vaccinated every day.

GUS: The two vaccines that have been approved in the US use mRNA to give your body practice fighting the coronavirus.

MOLLY BLOOM: Besides that mRNA, the vaccines contain tiny fat bubbles, sugar, water, and a couple salts and acids.

GUS: We know those vaccines work and that they're safe.

MOLLY BLOOM: Because thousands of people volunteered to be in clinical trials and scientists studied the vaccines very closely. That's it for this episode of Brains On!

GUS: It was produced by Marc Sanchez, Menaka Wilhelm, Sanden Totten, and Molly Bloom.

MOLLY BLOOM: We had production help from Kristina Lopez and David Zha, editing from Phyllis Fletcher, and engineering help from Jay Follette at Avast! Recording Company, and Cameron Wiley. Special thanks to Anna Weggel, Tracy Mumford, Prashant Yadav, Dave O'Connor, Natalie Dean, Vikki Krekler, and Coco.

GUS: Now, before we go, it's time for our Moment of Um.

[MULTIPLE SPEAKERS UMMING]

CAMERON HEARNE: What foods do the scientists in Antarctica eat? The short answer is that the food that the scientists eat down in Antarctica is very similar to what you eat here, but it's mostly preserved food, so what you would find in your pantry.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Hi. My name is Cameron Hearne, and I'm a scientist who went down to Antarctica, in Antarctica, I was looking at how climate change was affecting the growth of bacteria in the ice covered lakes. On a typical day in Antarctica, for breakfast, I would have oatmeal and a Snickers bar. And then for lunch, I would have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a Snickers bar. And then for a snack, I'd have another Snickers bar.

And then for dinner, I would have pasta followed up with a Snickers bar. We had an allotment of four or five Snickers bars a day per person. I was eating so many Snickers bars because it was important to try and stay warm and to stay warm when it's negative 20 degrees outside, you have to eat a lot of calories. And Snickers bars have a lot of calories for how big they are.

No veggies are required, basically, but you do have to get nutrients in some way, so pasta sauce or Hi-C is also a good one. The food comes from a big ship that comes in once a year and drops off all of the food we'll eat through the winter and through the summer. Every once in a while, freshies or fresh vegetables and fruits will get flown in from New Zealand. It's so rare that it comes in maybe about once a month.

And during the winter, no planes and no ships come in. They're just kind of left with what they have. Because of how the food gets down there and it's stored for so long, the vast majority of the food is well beyond the expiration date. Some foods kind of taste a little different but for the most part, it's about the same. The food down in Antarctica isn't bad, but it does make you cherish the food that's back home.

[MULTIPLE SPEAKERS UMMING]

MOLLY BLOOM: I just fueled up so I am ready to read this list of names. It's time for the Brains Honor Roll. These are the incredible listeners who share their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, drawings, and high fives with us.

[LISTING HONOR ROLL]

[MUSIC PLAYING] Brains are all alive

We'll be back soon with more answers to your questions.

GUS: Thanks for listening.