One of our best hopes for turning the tide on the COVID-19 pandemic is widespread vaccination and continued public health efforts.

At a time when many Americans are skeptical of vaccines generally — and the new COVID-19 vaccine especially — it’s helpful to know how the vaccines work.

It’s vaccination — not the vaccine alone — that will help us get back to normal.

Vaccines prepare your body for a fight.

All day and night, your body’s immune system is fighting off infections.

They come from bacteria, viruses, and even fungus and parasites. Your body is well-prepared for this fight because, most often, it knows its enemy.

It’s encountered these threats before and has learned how to fight them off. Sometimes it’s taken antibiotics to fight off a bacterial infection or an antiviral to handle a viral infection, but your body has won.

What makes new viruses, like the novel coronavirus, so dangerous is that none of us have been exposed to it before. No one’s body knew how to beat it.

Vaccines like the new COVID-19 vaccine trigger an immune response from your body. That means your immune system is ready to fight off the infection when it encounters it.

That’s a very broad overview of how vaccines work. The World Health Organization (WHO) has an excellent, detailed explanation of how vaccines work on their website.

Is the COVID-19 vaccine safe?

Few companies — apart from tobacco manufacturers, perhaps — can expect to last long by harming their customers.

The companies that develop vaccines and bring them to market work hard to ensure their safety. Often, years of research and analysis go into monitoring vaccines for their safety and effectiveness before they’re approved for the public.

With the COVID-19 vaccine, the need to provide an effective vaccine to the public as quickly as possible expedited the vaccine’s testing. It’s important to remember, however, that the vaccine went through rigorous testing.

It was also based on earlier research into vaccines, giving researchers a platform from which to work. Any vaccine can have side effects, but for most people, the risk of the illness is greater than the risk of the virus.

How long does the vaccine last?

That’s a difficult question because the vaccine is still new.

Your body will respond to the vaccine by producing antibodies that fight the coronavirus. We’ve even used antibodies from people who’ve had the virus to treat those who are currently sick.

However, those antibodies may not last. Some people who have had COVID-19 have been sick more than once because they lost their antibodies.

Almost all vaccines fade over time, which is why we occasionally need boosters later in life. It remains to be seen how long this vaccine will last and when subsequent vaccinations may be necessary.