These vaccines have been developed so quickly; how do I know that they have been tested properly?
The COVID-19 pandemic led to an international effort in vaccine development. The urgent need to control the pandemic, and save lives, meant that development processes were significantly accelerated. This does not mean that steps were skipped, or that safety was compromised.
More information about the speed of vaccine development is available here:
Vaccines 101: How new vaccines are developed
Are the COVID-19 vaccines safe?
The COVID-19 vaccines currently approved have been thoroughly reviewed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (the MHRA). The regulatory team have completed a full review of the safety information reported from the trials, which includes several months follow-up data from 23,000 people for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and 44,000 people for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
What does safe mean?
What this means, is that the MHRA has reviewed all the information from the clinical trials of these vaccines. This would include reviewing all the side effects and medical conditions that people in the trials experienced.
The number of illnesses reported in the vaccinated group is compared with the control group to see whether the vaccine could be associated with an increase in any medical conditions. The rates of illness are also compared with the rate of those illnesses in the general population. For any severe illnesses reported, a specialist doctor involved in treating the person and an independent safety committee consider whether the illness could be associated to the vaccine.
All the information about adverse events (unexpected illnesses) reported during the trial has been provided to the regulators, and the safety profile of both the Oxford-AstraZeneca and the Pfizer BioNTech vaccines is similar to that of other vaccines.