The arrival of safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines is a major development in the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly a year after the COVID-19 pandemic began, several vaccines have now been rolled out across the world, including some that use new RNA technology that has never been approved for use on humans before. Although all these vaccines have been produced at record speed, with processes run in parallel to save time, there have been many checks and balances to ensure their safety, including being subject to the same scientific and regulatory rigour as any other vaccine.