b'Spreading the messageMasks, social distancing, tests, vaccines: Health experts and journalists kept up with the latest lifesaving information and shared it with the public day by day.Paul Offit, international vaccine expert disease. That illness, called rotavirus, can cause high fever, vomiting, and diarrhea.If you tuned in to news pro- For the coronavirus, hundreds of companies and grams on CNN, ABC, Fox,research institutes across the world worked hard to and other TV channels duringproduce a vaccine, Dr. Offit explained. Plus, govern-the pandemic, you likely sawments were willing to pay a lot of money to compa-Dr. Paul Offit, who is an inter- nies so they could succeed. The rotavirus vaccine national vaccine expert. received little help from the government, he said.When two COVID-19 vaccinesThis is a pandemic, he said. Thats why it hap-became available at the endpened so quickly.of 2020 to prevent the dis- By late January, after more than 10 million people ease, he got busy explaining to as many people ashad been vaccinated, few serious problems had possible how the vaccineswhich kids often callarisen. It was a very good sign, Dr. Offit said. Still, shotscan protect people from COVID-19.he was cautious. He explained that some people were fearful that aWe need to be humble, keep our eyes open, and COVID vaccine could make them sick. look what happens as we vaccinate hundreds and I dont think people question whether or not ithundreds of millions of people to make sure that works, I think they believe it works, he said. Itheres not an additional problem, he said in a think they are scared that it might be unsafe. video recorded for Childrens Hospital of Philadel-He understands why some people might be afraidphia. He is the director of the hospitals Vaccine of the COVID vaccines. Some use new technolo- Education Center.gies, and they were developed quicklyin lessAs vaccinations started, Dr. Offit was keeping very than one year. Thats record-breaking speed. Bybusy with the coronavirus, writing about it, and comparison, it took 26 years for Dr. Offit and hisserving on a government advisory committee that co-inventors to develop a vaccine that protectsrecommends whether vaccines, including addition-young children against a different life-threateningal COVID-19 vaccines, should be available to the 31'