Qurious cookie!

  Which COVID vaccine should I take? Pfizer vs Moderna vs Covishield vs Covaxin? Which is the best?  In this post, I have tried to share the relevant information that I have accumulated which might help someone better think about and answer these questions for themselves. The first section of this post is a primer to immunology for those of us who might be unfamiliar with it, followed by a little discussion about the process of vaccine development. Finally, I summarize information that I gathered after going through phase 3 clinical trial data of COVID vaccines from four different companies and also provide decision trees for each of these, constructed from their phase 3 data.  It is a long post, and if you have limited time, then you can get the gist of this post by going through only figure 2 and section 3. However, I encourage you to read it in full to better understand section 3. 1. Understanding vaccines A: Punching bag (vaccine) used to train the fighter (immune cells) B: Fight

I hope everyone reading this post is safe, happy (Hard in Covid times, but we can try! 😛), and healthy. This post is my attempt at helping those who themselves or whose loved-ones have unfortunately been infected by Covid-19, in better understanding their RT-PCR Covid report.  I have written it in such a manner that it should be accessible to those of us who do not have an idea about molecular biology. Consequently, I have not gone into any details and have discussed various concepts quite superficially. Some of my relatives who got infected with Covid-19 (and all have recovered, thanks to God and the doctors!) were kind enough to share their reports with me. This allowed me to have a look at how an actual report looks like and also motivated me to write this post. What you need to know to understand this post (basic concepts): (Skip this section if you have ever done even a single molecular biology course)  1. COVID-19 is caused by a virus (called SARS-CoV2)  2. Virus is a very smal