Why is it so hard to find a Covid-19 Vaccine?
- Sarah Masih
- Mar 1, 2021
- 3 min read
It’s official folks! The COVID-19 vaccines are out. According to the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society, there are about 11 approved vaccines in the market and another 57 in development. These vaccines are approved in different parts of the world and are being distributed to different parts of the world. In the United States, President Biden has promised to have 70% of the willing population vaccinated by summer, 2021. The respected Dr. Fauci has said that we could return to normalcy by the end of the year if the new UK COVID variant is controlled. It seems like the pandemic tale is coming to an end, and much of it depends on the distribution and implementation of the vaccines.
As I mentioned before that the end of the story, or nearing the end, however, there were many plot twists in the middle. Never before human history has a vaccine been developed, tried, and implement in this amount of time. A lot of professionals did not believe that the vaccine would come out in the record time that it did. To quote Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, “No, I think it’s highly unrealistic to expect a vaccine by the end of 2020. We haven’t made any vaccine in that short of time.” Now that’s not pessimism, that’s realism. COVID-19 was a curveball for all scientists because of its unique aspects. No one had ever seen anything like it before. In spite of the confusion, scientists worked hard.
The question was never whether or not a vaccine would be delivered, it was when. The vaccine was developed within a year, but what took so long? There are many aspects to understand what’s needed to protect you from the disease. One of those aspects is an immune response, but there are numerous other components. There are cells, and proteins involved, and we need to know which are involved in a particular disease. For the COVID-19, scientists didn’t have time to properly identify those particular important areas, and therefore it was more of a trial and error during the lab trials. Nonetheless, many companies have come up with excellent vaccines in a very short amount of time.
Secondly, there were many perspectives. Should the vaccine be centered around mortality rates? Reduction in severe disease, which leads to a reduction in hospitalization? Or prevention of infection? Additionally, COVID can be caught by the people testing the vaccine, and therefore people were restricted from gathering in labs together, to ensure minimum exposure.
Yet another aspect was, how will different ages react to the vaccine, and which age should be prioritized. Of course, this was made much easier, once we discovered that older people were more susceptible to the disease, while younger children were mostly safe. Then, the problem was, how do we know the vaccine won’t have other side effects? How long till we know that there are no bad side effects?
The last, but definitely, not the least problem was the distribution of the vaccine. Which country will get it first, and which will get it last? How much will it cost? Will everyone have access to it? Will it be free to certain people? How will we get it to rural areas? Will every age group get it? How will we ensure that everyone gets it? Will it be required?
And the far most important question- will it eradicate COVID?
The last question is yet to be answered, but stay tuned!
Stay safe, wear a mask, and ask around about the availability of the vaccine around you!
Until Next time,
Sarah
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