The creation of the new COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer has happened more quickly than vaccines in the past. But Michael Dohn, Medical Director of Public Health - Dayton and Montgomery County, said during a press conference today this shouldn’t be a cause for concern.
"I would like to say that they haven’t cut corners, that all of the pieces that are normally there have been done to the same degree of quality as they would be in the traditional development of a vaccine."
Dohn says the speed is due to the Pfizer running several levels of the development process at one time.
"They overlapped activities." he said. "One of the slower steps for instance is production of the vaccine in large quantities. The federal government paid for them to do that early on. So as soon as they had a vaccine that looked promising, they started those first clinical trials. They also started to do mass production so it would be ready very rapidly."
Medical officials say the vaccine will likely become available to medical personnel first. It may be months before the general population can be vaccinated.