Over the past couple of days there has been a lot of talk about a potential vaccine said by the CDC to be ready for distribution by late October or early November. This is news that should bring hope and happiness to Americans, because it would mark the start of the process towards Phase 3 and the end of quarantine. Instead it has been met with skepticism. At the start of the pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it would take around 18 months for the development and testing of a safe and effective vaccine and now we might be looking at going into Phase 3 by early 2021.

Vaccines work to help the body’s immune system be ready to fight the specific bacteria or virus it was designed to fight. It takes three long clinical trials to determine if a vaccine is safe and effective.

Phase 1 starts with giving the vaccine to a small group of volunteers to test if it is safe and has a response to the system.

In Phase 2 and 3, the vaccine is given to larger groups to test if positive results are consistent and observe side effects.

The whole process can take several years, and it can also take several more before the vaccine is even distributed to the general population. This is the reason so many people are hesitant to believe a vaccine can be available this soon. No one wants to be the victim of bad side effects caused by a rushed and defective vaccine. 

President Donald Trump, who made the promise of a vaccine by election day has been criticized for using the vaccine for political gain. Trump’s critics seem to believe that Trump is behind the entire thing. They find it suspicious that a vaccine will already be ready right before the 2020 election and believe that he is prematurely introducing it to help win people over. This early vaccine may also be the result of the worldwide race to find a vaccine. Countries such as Russia and Australia claim to already have an effective vaccine or to be extremely close to one. 

Upon hearing people’s reaction to the news the CDC, the FDA, WHO, and even the nation’s leading expert on the subject, Dr. Anthony Fauci, assured the people that an early vaccine is not impossible and that the U.S. would never release a vaccine without conducting extensive trials and observing overwhelmingly positive results.