The COVID-19 vaccine phenomenon: its unprecedented development and future implications
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Abstract
The COVID-19 vaccine was developed only two months after it was identified in December 2019 and was subsequently tested and approved in November 2020. This expedited timeline was unprecedented for any therapy for a novel disease, and the factors that contributed to this accelerated development were explored. Through a comprehensive literature review, an analytical search of social media influences and policy documents/legislation, and the discovery of an extraordinary movement of scientific collaboration, it was concluded that the COVID-19 vaccine production in under a year was the consequence of a new social, political, and scientific landscape. Social media was the dominant form of information exchange for both public health and scientific research. In the wake of a pandemic, countries and institutions created avenues of collaboration and incentivized research and development through lucrative initiatives and grants. In the future, pandemic responses are likely to consist of these three domains of social, political, and scientific efforts, and each domain can have a vital role in a proper and effective development of a therapy.
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Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International