On November 9th last year, in the grip of a deadly pandemic, the world caught a break.

A great day for science and humanity is how the developers of a vaccine have described results that show it is effective against the coronavirus.

This is the day we first heard about a successful trial of a vaccine against COVID-19, and it didn't just work. It worked spectacularly.

The world's leading scientists have expressed their delight following the news that a vaccine against

coronavirus has proved 90% effective in early results.

There were two headline numbers that day.

The one you're more likely to remember is that 90%, the estimated efficacy of the new jab.

The other number is 300,

because for the first time in history it took under 300 days to develop a new vaccine.

Though we were lucky, research into these types of vaccines had been

taking place for decades. The vaccine developed by Farmer Giant Pfizer and his

partner Biontech has been tested on 43 on 43,500 people in six countries.

And the good news kept on coming.

We're beginning to light Mondays. For the second week running, we have positive news on a COVID vaccine.

Madonna says its coronavirus vaccine is 94.5% effective against COVID-19.

Trials of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca have

shown it to be highly effective. Boris Johnson has hailed the breakthrough and

advances in testing and treatments saying the scientific cavalry is in sight.

I'm Sandra Cantol and I've been following the progress of COVID-19 vaccines since early 2020.

In this program, I'm asking whether what we've learned in the past year and a half

could impact the speed of medical research and development in the future.

This time last year the experts I spoke with were confident a vaccine could be developed

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