It comes to my attention that some people don't know what mRNA is, or that they are under the impression that mRNA is an invention. I should have guessed that – not everyone is a nerd, and I prefer to be ‘special’ 
, anyway! – so I apologize for the oversight.
mRNA is a fundamental part of the way our bodies function and refresh their cells daily. Here's a very short explanatory video:
Kudos to whoever put that together. I couldn't have been so brief, and the animations are brilliant.
The link to vaccines is that scientists have now figured out how to create – print, sort of – artificial mRNA for some harmless part of a virus and inject it into the human body, allowing the body to build the protein and thus alerting the immune system before the actual virus invades. When the real virus happens by, immune response is thus immediate and in force. Such vaccines are far more efficient to develop and produce than traditional ‘inactivated virus’ vaccines, which is a major reason (in addition to streamlined federal regulatory requirements and massive funding guarantees from the federal government) for the quick turn around on Covid-19 vaccines.
J&J/Janssen and Astrazeneca found a way to use DNA to quickly accomplish the same task. Very clever. This will be in the history books.
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