The COVID-19 vaccines that are available in Australia and most countries, don’t contain the whole vaccine, so you don’t get infected with the virus.
There are other live virus infections like the measles vaccine, that is a hobbled version of the live measles vaccine, so you do actually get a bit infected with measles when you have that vaccine. And it’s the same with the polio vaccine. But with the coronavirus, the vaccines that you have do not contain the live virus. So, most of them in fact have just that little spike protein, so it’s not even the whole virus. It’s just a little bit of the virus that they’re producing which is the key piece of the virus that you need the immune system to respond to.
There is a Chinese virus, which is a killed version of the coronavirus, that they’re injecting into their body, it’s not very effective, and that’s a bit like the flu vaccine. The flu vaccine is a killed version of the virus, so you don’t get infected with the whole virus.
Dr Norman Swan, Physician and Journalist
