Trini doctor Mateus Fernandez receives the Pfizer vaccine.
T&T-born doctor Mateus Fernandes, who lives and works in the US, was among the historic first round of health-care workers to be immunised with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine last Thursday.
During a virtual interview with Guardian Media Limited, the 28-year-old Internal Medicine Resident who is attached to the New York City hospital network urged people to set aside their fears and get vaccinated. He sought to clear the air on some concerns being raised about the vaccine.
Q: How does it work?
MF: The vaccine is basically a string of proteins that your body recognises (called mRNA). This string is like a recipe with ingredients. When the cells in your immune systems see the vaccine proteins, it “reads” them and cooks up a piece of the outside of the coronavirus, the spike protein. These spike proteins cover the outside of the virus (the spikes together look like a crown, hence the name corona which means crown). Your body then makes antibodies which remove the spike proteins. It stores these antibodies in case you get exposed to the actual virus. So if you were to be exposed to the coronavirus, you already have antibodies that can recognise and destroy the outside of the virus, and help prevent you from getting an infection.