We enter 2021 buoyed by the end of the Covid-19 pandemic in sight. The reason for the optimism: vaccines. In a remarkable feat of twenty-first century medical achievement, effective vaccines for Covid-19 were developed around the world in 9 months, substantially faster than we had ever developed a vaccine; the previous record for vaccine development was for mumps—and that took three years. Signals from vaccine makers—both those using the novel mRNA technology, and those using more traditional adenovirus technology—had us anticipating the end of the Covid-19 pandemic as soon as the vaccines were available.
After a year that upended our entire economy, our collective incentives were aligned to vaccinate as many as possible, as quickly as possible. We knew the vaccine was coming months in advance and several professional organizations proposed guidelines for vaccine prioritization. The President set a target of 20 million people vaccinated by the end of 2020.
Read the full piece on The Turning Point.