The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how quickly life can change. That's evident in people's personal lives and across the scientific community. Remarkable advances have been made in science over the past year, guided by international research collaborations.

"When you look at nine months from when we first identified this pathogen to having a vaccine, that's as close to a human miracle, if I could use that term, as as one could expect," says Dr. Gregory Poland, an infectious diseases expert and head of Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group.

But he says there have been some frustrations. "As soon as we make some progress, everybody wants to open up and relax restrictions," says Dr. Poland. "Opening up and getting back to normal is not a light switch."

In this Mayo Clinic Q&A podcast, Dr. Poland talks about lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that vaccinations aren't enough to beat the COVID-19 virus and variants. He also says that communicating science and public health messaging needs to improve in the future.

Watch: Dr. Poland discusses the personal and scientific lessons learned the the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full transcript.

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For the safety of its patients, staff and visitors, Mayo Clinic has strict masking policies in place. Anyone shown without a mask was either recorded prior to COVID-19 or recorded in a nonpatient care area where social distancing and other safety protocols were followed.

Information in this post was accurate at the time of its posting. Due to the fluid nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific understanding, along with guidelines and recommendations, may have changed since the original publication date. 

Dr. Poland has served as a consultant for Merck & Co. Inc., Medicago Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc, Sanofi Pasteur, Emergent BioSolutions Inc., Dynavax Technologies Corp., Genentech Inc., Eli Lilly and Co., Kentucky BioProcessing Inc. and Genevant Sciences Corp., and Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. He is a paid scientific adviser for Johnson & Johnson. Honoraria: Elsevier.

For more information and all your COVID-19 coverage, go to the Mayo Clinic News Network and mayoclinic.org.

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