Vaccine Compliance Versus Trust in a Pandemic

This chapter considers the role of the rapid development of vaccinesVaccine in relation to modern “pandemic” healthHealth scares. In 2020 it was a political reflex that vaccines were needed to protect the public from the emergence of a new infectious diseaseDisease, infectious. This was accompanied by over-confidence that safe, effective vaccines could be developed at all, let alone in a timely manner, while globally preparednessPreparedness to cope with a new infectious diseaseDisease, infectious (for which no vaccineVaccine could be available at an early juncture) was minimal. At the same timeTime, billions of dollars of public money were collected to fund such projects. Attempting to fast forward the marketingMarketing of products that do not effectively prevent the disease, have unpleasant local side-effects, and unknown long-term ones are unlikely to lead to trustTrust and ignore other historical failures.