How the Rollouts of the Polio Vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine Compare

How the Rollouts of the Polio Vaccine , and COVID-19 Vaccine Compare.

How the Rollouts of the Polio Vaccine , and COVID-19 Vaccine Compare.

Polio once ravaged the U.S. before a vaccine was developed.

In the early 1950s, before polio vaccines were available, polio outbreaks caused more than 15,000 cases of paralysis each year, Via CDC Website.

Thanks to successful vaccine rollouts, polio in America is largely a disease of the past.

There hasn’t been a case in this hemisphere in decades.

It’s a triumph, a scientific triumph, Dr. Stephen Gluckman, via NBC News.

Because most polio victims were children, vaccines were administered in schools.

They were later distributed orally via sugar cubes.

Everybody just lined up.

You walked in, they handed you a sugar cube [infused with the vaccine], you swallowed it and walked on.

Each person was a few seconds, Dr. Thomas Farley, Philadelphia's Health Commissioner, via NBC News.

By contrast, the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine has been marred by lack of a clear infrastructure.

We’re just trying to find ways to create an infrastructure that doesn’t exist, which is an infrastructure for mass vaccination, Dr. Paul Offit, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, via NBC News.

Once the polio vaccine was created, the media went to work declaring it "safe, potent and effective.".

Those three words were the headline of every newspaper in America, Dr. Paul Offit, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, via NBC News.

While mainstream media has touted the same message for the COVID-19 vaccines, getting inoculated has been politicized.

Despite vast differences between the vaccine rollouts, medical professionals agree about the scale of tragedy caused by the diseases.

[The coronavirus pandemic] is just like polio was, just like World War II was, it's a shared national tragedy.

But it's not perceived that way, Dr. Paul Offit, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, via NBC News