Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Since 2020, vaccine development has been expedited via unprecedented collaboration in the multinational pharmaceutical industry and between governments. By June 2020, tens of billions of dollars were invested by corporations, governments, international health organizations, and university research groups to develop dozens of vaccine candidates and prepare for global vaccination programs to immunize against COVID-19 infection. . . . In February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it did not expect a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 to become available in less than 18 months.[150] Virologist Paul Offit commented that, in hindsight, the development of a safe and effective vaccine within 11 months was a remarkable feat. The rapidly growing infection rate of COVID-19 worldwide during 2020 stimulated international alliances and government efforts to urgently organize resources to make multiple vaccines on shortened timelines, with four vaccine candidates entering human evaluation in March." [Wikipedia]