Vaccines against Covid have been in development for many years, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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If you’re resisting getting vaccinated against Covid because you think the vaccines were developed too quickly, here’s the real story, according to Sherita Golden, a physician at Johns Hopkins.

Golden: The technology that we are using in the mRNA vaccines in particular was developed over the course of ten or fifteen years specifically in case we ever found ourselves in the situation we’re in today, that they would be able to very quickly make a vaccine. And that’s what’s really key is that it was projected that this could happen. When it did we already had the technology in place. As the first phase of the trial looked promising they started the second, as the second looked promising they started the third, so it was really like putting money and investment up front.  :32

Golden notes that an uptick in Covid cases is once again being seen at various locations around the country, so if you need to begin the vaccine series the time to do so is now, since an immune response takes a couple of weeks to develop. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.