One of the many misconceptions that some have about the COVID-19 vaccines is that they were developed too quickly. In fact, all of the normal safety steps were followed in developing the vaccines, and they are helping to bring the pandemic to an end. In a roundtable talk, experts from Mount Sinai answer some frequently asked questions.
Did scientists and the government take short cuts and develop the vaccines too quickly?
Scientists followed all of the normal safety steps that are taken when we create new vaccines. No safety steps were skipped. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were made with technology that has been studied for many years, and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was made using traditional methods.
So how did we produce and test these vaccines as quickly as we did?
COVID-19 vaccines became the priority for everyone. Researchers around the world dedicated themselves at the same time to finding solutions. We quickly understood how well the vaccines worked because COVID-19 spread so rapidly. It became clear that people who were vaccinated weren’t getting hospitalized, weren’t in ICUs, and weren’t dying of COVID-19.
How do we know the vaccines are safe?
In the United States alone, nearly 200 million people have safely received the COVID-19 vaccines—twice as many as the flu vaccine. If you haven’t yet, we encourage you to get vaccinated.