EC Microbiology

Keywords: Vaccine; Covid-19; SARS-CoV2; Immune System; Pandemic; Public Health; Policy

“By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail” Benjamin Franklin.

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better or at least something different…” T.S. Elliot.

Twenty years ago, more than 50 initiatives began their search for the ultimate vaccine against the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), few more joined to tackle the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012. Many seem to have achieved proof of concept in animal models, but very few entered human clinical trials to assess safety and immunogenicity, and then the trail went cold until April 2020. After that, a new cycle of more than 100 new initiatives begun in an unprecedented race to develop a vaccine against the SARS-CoV2 virus causing the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as the world was witnessing a global pandemic spreading like fire from one country to another as never seen before. All because of bad decisions that allowed the virus to leave China with no country was prepared for what was coming.