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A comment on Pfizer 91% effective in updated data, protective against South African variant. Parent comment

Re:Pfizer 91% effective in updated data, protective against ... by tachyonbeam on Thursday April 01, 2021 @01:04PM (#26663205)
It is genetic material but it doesn't get into your DNA and stay there. Those vaccines inject RNA into the cell. The RNA gets expressed into proteins, and then it breaks down. When people talk about genetic engineering, they are typically talking about permanently changing the genome of some host organism, and possibly that of its descendants.
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Re:Pfizer 91% effective in updated data, protective against ... by 99_00 on Thursday April 01, 2021 @02:56PM (#26664613)
>When people talk about genetic engineering, they are typically talking about permanently changing the genome of some host organism, and possibly that of its descendants.

Maybe I don't understand what is and isn't genetic engineering them. Still it is exciting and amazing thing that is happening.

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Re:Pfizer 91% effective in updated data, protective against ... by dwaltrip on Thursday April 01, 2021 @10:10PM (#26668447)
Huh. Based on your original comment, I thought you were fear-mongering / being conspiratorial. Perhaps the grayed out text biased me to think that.

Whether or not the mRNA vaccine is considered "genetic engineering" (I think it's a confusing usage of the term, if not fully mistaken), I totally misread your intent. I stand corrected.

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Re:Pfizer 91% effective in updated data, protective against ... by 99_00 on Thursday April 01, 2021 @03:45PM (#26665160)
Do you know how long it takes for the RNA to break down? Is this why they need two shots? I find it very hard to find answers to these kind of questions using search engines.
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Re:Pfizer 91% effective in updated data, protective against ... by maxerickson on Thursday April 01, 2021 @05:22PM (#26666214)
It doesn't take very long for the mRNA to break down, a few hours.

It's perhaps overly simplified, but the first shot teaches the immune system what to look for and the second shot causes it to prepare a bunch of antibodies that will attack the virus (in some sense, the second shot is a reminder to keep defending against the virus, and the immune system does that by making antibodies).

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