Prior to 2020, most of us had never heard of the word 'coronavirus' …however… for people in the science community, the term was nothing new.
Coronaviruses are a well-known family of viruses, thought to be behind up to a third of all common colds, and responsible for the SARS epidemic in 2003, and MERS outbreak in 2012.
Previous work on SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and other common human coronaviruses meant researchers weren't totally starting from scratch with SARS-CoV-2. They already had some understanding of the virus's biology.
For anyone to think that Covid-19 vaccine development kicked off when the pandemic did, shows they dd no research on the subject. In reality, scientists had spent years building vaccine technologies that could be quickly adapted to emerging viral threats … sometimes known as 'Disease X'.
Thanks to funding bodies like the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI), researchers at Oxford University had been working on a vaccine that could be quickly tweaked to target COVID-19.
The technology involves using a harmless common cold virus (that infects chimpanzees) and engineering it to carry proteins of other viruses you want to protect against.
The research meant that as soon as the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) became available, the Oxford team was able to use the virus's genetic blueprint to modify their vaccine and begin testing it in clinical trials.
Similarly, development of a different vaccine approach, using mRNA technology … used in both Pfizer's and Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines… allowed researchers to work much faster than if they had relied on traditional vaccine methods, such as using weakened or inactivated parts of the virus.
Like the Oxford vaccine, the mRNA vaccines could be made fast because they only required the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2, and not a sample of the actual virus.
Vaccine research costs money …
a lot of money… and often this can be difficult to secure. However this time round, thanks to billions of dollars from governments, the private sector, and funding bodies like CEPI, researchers had access to immediate and substantial funding for COVID-19 vaccines.
This meant multiple clinical trials were launched quickly, and pharmaceutical companies were able to manufacture and stockpile vaccines before they even knew if they were effective.
Thanks to significant funding injections and lots of people willing to take part in research, scientists have been able to run clinical trials in parallel … e.g. recruiting for phase 3 while they're still finishing phase 1 … rather than do things sequentially (and slowly).
The message here is: the Covid vaccines were not “rushed” as some have wrongly assumed. It has been in the making for many years.
No one knows whether it is 110% effective, just as researchers did not know with all the previous pandemical vaccines. Being effective meaning whether it will protect you from the virus or not… only time will tell.
What is known at this point in time is: people with underlying medical conditions should seek advice from their doctors who have their medical history. Reasonably healthy people have no reason whatsoever not to take the vaccine.
Source of information: Various.