A bill before the state Legislature would ban schools from requiring students to get emergency use vaccines — a COVID-19 success story that prevented more than 18 million hospitalizations and more than 3 million deaths in the U.S.
Meanwhile, a well-timed NIH review in the journal Science examines the strengths and weaknesses of the research response to the pandemic.
Just as the COVID response drew upon abilities gleaned from battling SARS, success in combating the next pandemic might hinge on lessons from the current one.
The review praises emergency use authorizations, which brought two mRNA vaccines to market within a year instead of a decade.
It also applauds the roles of collaboration, diversity and streamlining efforts in rapidly developing and deploying treatments and testing.
Looking forward, the authors underline the need to continue investments in knowledge development, surveillance and large-scale clinical trial networks to avoid meeting the next crisis flat-footed.
