'An absolutely surreal moment:' Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, who helped develop COVID vaccine, on clinical trial's anniversary

Thursday marks the three-year anniversary since the first Moderna mRNA COVID vaccine was injected into a human for its phase one trial. The vaccine was the culmination of work from scientists around the world, including top immunologists and public health experts here in the U.S. and in Massachusetts. One of those scientists that played a major role in developing the vaccine is Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She joined GBH's Morning Edition co-host Paris Alston to talk about the anniversary and her work on the vaccine. This transcript has been lightly edited.

Paris Alston: I'm so glad that you're joining us this morning. Thank you. Happy anniversary to you, I suppose I should say. Thinking back to that day three years ago when that first dose was injected, what was that like for you as someone who had helped develop that vaccine, to see it going into someone's arm?

Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett: It was an absolutely surreal moment, and I do think happy anniversary is appropriate. I actually do celebrate this as if it is an anniversary for me. I don't think that when we started developing the vaccine in the beginning of January that we envisioned that there would even be a pandemic, and certainly that we envisioned that we would have such dire weight on our shoulders around the middle of March. And so it was just so surreal to see that vaccine going into someone's arm.

Alston: And now, millions of people across the world have those vaccines, and things feel more manageable, at least, as a result. And clearly, a lot has changed since that moment, since that first dose, and we have better understandings. As everyday people, we sort of understand mRNA a little bit more now, and we know that there are other health care developments that have happened as a result of this COVID vaccine. But how have things changed for you as an immunologist? Do you look at things differently now?

Corbett: I certainly look at things differently. I really now take a very worldly approach to all the work that I do. Back then, when I was studying coronaviruses, I was doing it from a very basic science approach. And now when my lab at Harvard asks questions about coronaviruses and other viruses, I really look at how this will affect public health, how our work will really inform the betterment of health and wellness for, really, everyone. That moment proved to me that we are not isolated, and that anything that is a product out of my science should be informing the health of everyone, really.

Alston: And to that point, you are very well known for your use of social media to inform the public about health and health care issues, and things that you're working on. How do you balance doing that on a platform like, say, Twitter, with also making sure that what you're saying doesn't get misconstrued, misinterpreted and that sort of thing?

Corbett: Delicately. Or even or even barely, I should say. You know, I think that the one thing about Twitter, as can be said about text messages or anything that is not spoken verbally with tone, is that anyone can read it how they feel. And so what I do is I just really try to, when I am relaying information about science or the vaccines, to really just try to stick to the facts and leave my opinion out of it and things of that nature. And I think that tends to help. I think when people come to me, whether it be, is it time to get a new booster? Should I be vaccinating my children? Or all of these questions, I think when they come to my Twitter page, they're really looking for a very verbatim fact. And so I try to give them that.

Alston: And I also just want to point out, I know that that equity and racial equity in terms of how we have dealt with the coronavirus, as well as the vaccine rollout, has been something that you've discussed as well. And to that point, do you think that the general public, including the people who you were trying to relay that specific information to, has a better understanding now of how viruses work and how immunology works and how infectious diseases spread?

Corbett: I do I think that overall, everyone has lived through school, so to speak, a virology crash course, over the last three years or so where each of us was really almost thrust into this moment where we had no choice but to learn about viruses and immunology and all of those things in order to make the best decisions for ourselves. And it was difficult. It was a difficult time to be in the pandemic and to be learning things in such real time. But I will say that I think that everyone came out of it better. I find that people will even, as I talk to people about their seasonal flu vaccines, for example, people are a little bit more even informed about how those work, because now everyone is really interested in understanding vaccine technology and essentially what is going into their body.

Alston: And thanks to the vaccine, we are sort of in this era where we're re-emerging, right? I mean, both Massachusetts and the federal government are on the cusp of ending their public health emergencies this May. And as we do that, some are also still cautioning that the pandemic is not over. People are still catching COVID and other infectious diseases or viral diseases. So how should we be approaching the pandemic at this juncture?

Corbett: You know, I think that what is being said around ending the emergency declaration is that we are not in the same time that we were in three years ago. And I think that we can all appreciate that we're living differently. COVID disease, generally in healthy adult people, is milder now. I think that what we have to do is, maybe even if it's not an emergency declaration, still approach COVID-19 and other viral diseases with caution always. And my hope is that the ending of the emergency declaration does not relay the message that we must end caution. And I'm hoping that to the public health, that the federal government and Massachusetts government, that we really relay that with very fine point. Otherwise people will take it like it's over. And it most certainly is not. And it will most certainly never be over. We are going to be living with COVID for the rest of our lives and we always must approach it, and other viral diseases, with caution.