Yes. Big problems – like the COVID-19 pandemic – require lots of people working together to create a solution. This is exactly what happened with the COVID-19 vaccines.
The vaccines were able to come out quickly because scientists and public health care experts worked on many different parts of the research, testing and approval process at the same time, instead of one by one. Officials eliminated bureaucracy that normally slows things down – this meant vaccine development could happen much faster, but no less safely. Teams worked around the clock (and around the world) in unprecedented ways to help create vaccines that would stop people from getting sick and dying.
No corners were cut at any point. The technology behind the COVID-19 vaccines is not new – scientists have been working on it for years, so development already had a head start. Plus, the strict safety standards the vaccines had to meet were established well before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the vaccines went through the same rigorous clinical trials that other vaccines go through.
Sometimes, getting something faster than you expect might not indicate a job well done. But that’s definitely not the case with the COVID-19 vaccines. Scientists were confident in the safety of the vaccines before rolling them across the country. Now, after millions of people have been vaccinated, there’s no question that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and the best way to reduce your chances of getting severely sick.