COVID Vaccines and Global Cooperation

When you think about receiving a vaccine, typically it's thought to be a quick and easy process. Not much goes into it from the minute you walk into a clinic, roll up your sleeve, and then leave. But what about everything that happened before the easy part? What about getting the vaccine to you in the first place? Various countries are rushing to manufacture a vaccine for COVID-19. This happens to be a global endeavor for various reasons. Many different parties are currently involved in producing a COVID vaccine, but the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine producer, may be a step ahead of the rest. They have teamed up with Oxford scientists in order to mass produce high quantities of a vaccine before anyone else does. Governments of different countries would have to work out some sort of contracts with this company in order to receive their vaccine, which would only be possible by having global cooperation and integration. Additionally, once the vaccine is manufactured, it needs to be distributed. Difficulties that have been circulating regarding the transportation of a future vaccine include that the vaccine will need to be kept at extremely low temperatures at all times. In order to do this, shipping companies as well as containment facilities in numerous countries will need to be able to facilitate the low temperatures for the vaccine. Other countries are involved in every step of producing and distributing a COVID vaccine, it will not be up to one country alone. Global cooperation and integration will also be prominent because of the high demand of medical supplies needed to support the extremely high number of vaccines that need to be made available. Whether or not a COVID vaccine will be made available to you will depend on the ability of many different countries to work together.