Many people are looking towards a vaccine to be the final cure for COVID-19 as it continues to spread throughout the United States and the world.

The making of a vaccine, as discussed in an article two weeks ago, is no small matter with much time and effort applied to make sure of its safety.

Last week’s article focused on the top three possible vaccines. That is only three of the one-hundred and sixty vaccines currently undergoing testing, although most will not make it out of the laboratory.

Those discussed last week were three of the five Operation Warp Speed selected by the Trump Administration. Merck plus Pfizer and BioNTech makes up the other two companies.

After development, the first to receive the vaccine will be older people, individuals with pre-existing conditions, and health care workers.

After the first three groups are vaccinated, everyone else will be able to receive their vaccinations.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, discussed how he is, “cautiously optimistic that we will have one or maybe more vaccines that could be available and be effective by the end of 2020 or 2021.”

With everything said, it is worth noting that Dr. Fauci made an effort to state that he hopes the vaccine is 70% to 75% effective because that would bring the Country to herd immunity level, if all Americans get the vaccine.

If only 75% of Americans receive the vaccine that might not be enough for herd immunity.

For comparison and understanding purposes, the measles vaccine is around 97% to 98% effective, yet the influenza vaccine is only around 40%.

Measles is almost unheard of, yet people contract influenza frequently.

While people are highly concerned about the spread of COVID-19, especially in the highly populated regions, there are many things to keep in mind.

Vice President Mike Pence stated that, “We have more than 30,000 ventilators in the Strategic National Stockpile, and we’re well on our way to building 100,000 ventilators in 100 days.”

A couple other issues Pence covered was that approximately 6% of people tested have tested positive, which is a lower number than expected, and that Gilead Sciences, a pharmaceutical company, announced it would donate about 940,000 vials of its new drug remdesivir to treat more than 120,000 patients.

Remdesivir showed to shorten recovery time approximately four days in a Gilead test study of 1,063 patients, with 538 receiving the medication and the other 521 receiving a placebo.

The development of a vaccine or any new drug is never easy, but pharmaceutical companies have worked closely with the Government to make sure that when a vaccine is developed and safely approved, it is ready to go and help protect people.

This was allowed without the normal wait time, because manufacturing was handled early, courtesy of the Governmental funding, instead of waiting till after testing.

With hope, prayer and science, COVID-19 will hopefully become a barely discussed thing of the past, by 2022.