The idea is that when you get sick, your body just starts randomly throwing things at the virus to see what works, and eventually it finds something that “works”, even though it might not be the optimal solution. The vaccine gives your immune system a plan for the “most effective” solution, which is expected to act more quickly and cover more variants. This is why they are also recommending people get vaccinated even if they have already recovered from an infection.
At least, for vaccinated people, they have better outcomes the first time they come into contact with the virus. After that contact, they'll also have naturally-derived immunity. So the vaccine is a way for people to acquire their natural immunity more safely.
The vaccine keys your immune system on a mostly unchanging part of the virus. It’s such a key part of the virus that for the virus to mutate that part it would be a dramatically different and less deadly mutation.
In an infection your body randomly keys on any of a large number of characteristics of the virus. Those almost certainly will be less lasting than the vaccine.
If you're exposed to a pathogen, you'll get infected. Immunity makes it so that your body recognizes the attacker and fights it.
Vaccines and prior infection train the adaptive immune system to recognize pathogens so that the body can begin fighting the infection sooner. Some people's immune systems work less well than others, or due to situational factors, a person is more susceptible to infection and they become sick. People with immunity generally do far better at fighting the infection, being less ill and recovering faster.
Nothing is perfect. Vaccines are better than getting sick or doing nothing.
Many vaccines sadly aren't 100% effective. The reason they work so well is because if _everyone_ is vaccinated the immunities of the group reduce exposure to the group, a kind of self-reinforcement.
And the more a vaccinated person is exposed to a disease, the more permutations of that disease get thrown at the vaccinated population. If one takes, then we have the whole problem of the disease all over again. One consequence of the short life of bacteria and the mutation of viruses is that they're basically brute-forcing our immunities of every population they're in contact with.
This is why it's _so important_ that people follow vaccination programs. Eventually we'll have to deal with new diseases, but if we aggressively and correctly vaccinate, we can stave off that day for a lot longer than if we half-ass it.
Miniscule amount of pathogen in the vaccine can give you full immunity. I think when you have fever your immune system was already exposed to enough of the virus to build full immunity for the future. Now it's just the case of whether you survive to enjoy your future immunity. And anti-virals just help you with that part.
If you already have an immune response to the virus, your body has a chance to destroy the virus before an infection can take hold. Same with any vaccine. Then normal course of any infection is for the infection to take hold and your body then works on an immune response, eventually killing the infection (one would hope). Previous infection means you already have the immune response ready and waiting (though that can fade over time). Vaccines simply mimic your bodies response when recovering from an infection.
What do you mean? Vaccines work by preparing the immune system before a real infection so that the real virus can be destroyed before it causes too much damage.
All vaccines boost the immune system. It seems like a lot of people misunderstand how vaccines work (not saying you do). Vaccines don't fight of infections for you, they train the immune system to correctly identify pathogens so the immune system can fight them off more efficiently.
A vaccine works by stimulating the immune system with a pathogen-like substance to produce a response that trains it. Ergo, if the immune system doesn't work, a vaccine is useless!
There's multiple vaccines that can also work after you've been exposed to a pathogen. In many such cases risks vs benefits will change by the event.
For example rabies vaccines is not given to everyone, however after you get rabies you will be given that vaccine.
Vaccine in this case is a less harmful training tool to prepare you for the more harmful pathogen that may still be reaching its peak strength.
You can think of vaccines as a training tool. In some cases it might provide you with a response that can completely throw the pathogen out, in other cases it will just be able to fight it better.
Because for your body to fight a virus, it needs to have a good working immune system. Some people lack that for various reasons. A vaccine helps in this case but it's not 100%.
Being "fit" certainly helps your immune system. But as we see here, it doesn't make you invincible.
What has been generally disproved is the concept of herd immunity. Initially this was what scientists and researchers had hoped would occur with vaccinations, and sadly for multiple reasons this did not happen.
Vaccines does significant help in reducing the severity when a person get sick, which reduces the work load on the health care system and allowing the personal to focus their time and skill on people in worse conditions. That is great, but it changes the initial strategy in terms of application and goal.
Yes. The vaccine trains your immune system to create antibodies used to fight off the disease. Already having those antibodies when the virus appears means that it will not last as long and the symptoms will not be as severe.
Without the vaccine, your body has to create those antibodies while you are already sick, and that takes time. This gives the virus a huge head start.
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