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When you get vaccinated, your muscle cells take up the vaccine. In the case of mRNA vaccines, your muscle cells take up messenger RNA that your muscle cells use to make the spike protein, which is the protein that the virus that causes COVID-19 uses to enter your cells. Your cells make that spike protein so that your immune system can see it and be trained to recognize it.

The vaccine though doesn't circulate around your body. It's just taken up by your muscle cells. The muscle cells use the mRNA, they make the spike protein. Your immune system goes after it. And then after a few weeks, it's gone. Gone from your body entirely. No more spike protein, no more vaccine, gone. What's left behind though is the knowledge of what that spike protein looks like, and your immune system uses that knowledge to respond if it ever sees the virus trying to enter your body.

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