Vaccine development has progressed far faster than I would have ever guessed. This might be a dumb question but what has enabled a COVID-19 vaccine to be developed in such short time? I was under the impression that developing a vaccine took on the order of 10s of years while this has been put together in 10s of months. I was also under the impression that this was because making vaccines for viruses was much harder than other treatments because interrupting the viruses reproduction chain is essentially requiring you to interrupt your cell's reproduction chain.
Is there some tool that has been used here that hasn't been available in the past? I know the FDA said they would allow skipping some preliminary testing to fast track a drug. Was that a huge help?
Is there some tool that has been used here that hasn't been available in the past? I know the FDA said they would allow skipping some preliminary testing to fast track a drug. Was that a huge help?