Natural vaccines

Vaccines should be similar enough to original pathogens. They should induce our bodies to generate immune cells that are effective on original pathogens.

Vaccines should be dissimilar enough to original pathogens. They should not be as pathogenic as the original pathogens.

Researchers work hard in their labs to mutate the original pathogens in a proper way, with proper amount to generate the desired vaccines.

Nature is a gigantic lab. Mutations occur everywhere, all the time. Every pathogen has many siblings and cousins. They are the natural candidates for vaccines. The very first vaccine, a cow vaccine for smallpox, was a natural vaccine from cows.

Even new vaccines are often speed up natural vaccines. Researchers inject pathogens into chicken bodies, hoping to induce the desired mutations from the interactions between pathogens and chickens.

Do we really have to wait for the lab vaccine? Among people never exposed to novel coronavirus, 40% to 60% have the same kind of T cells (a type of immune cells) as those exposed to novel coronaviruses. Coronaviruses are a big family with many cousins. Some common cold are caused by coronaviruses. Probably many of us already got vaccinated by those cousin coronaviruses.

Those natural vaccines may not be effective enough. That may be true. But artificial vaccines may not be effective enough either. There is no guarantee that artificial vaccines are more effective than natural vaccines. There is guarantee that natural vaccines offer broader spectrum protection that artificial vaccines.

Nature is not our enemy. Nature is our sanctuary, spiritually and physically. It gives us vaccines. It gives us vitality.

P.S. A research paper finds 40% to 60% people never exposed to novel coronavirus have the same type of T cells as those exposed to novel coronaviruses.