Just a few months after the pandemic reached the U.S, a COVID-19 vaccine may soon be available.

Two pharmaceutical companies called Phizer and Moderna have both applied for FDA emergency authorization for their vaccines. The FDA will meet to decide whether to approve the Phizer vaccine on December 10th and will meet to rule on the Moderna vaccine on December 17th.

If approved on December 10th, the Phizer vaccine will begin being distributed in the next few weeks.

For IU freshman Audrey Strickling, the question of who will have access to the vaccine first is a major concern.

“I have a feeling the vaccine’s going to come out and it will be a class issue and it will only be available to certain people,” Strickling said. “I would want to wait until it’s not only for privileged people.”

A CDC Advisory Committee officially recommended on December 1st that healthcare workers and those living in long term care facilities should be the first to receive the vaccine, but the decision of how to distribute the vaccine is ultimately up to the state governors.

IU freshman Sophie Phoenix said she was skeptical that the government might be too eager to approve a vaccine that was developed in such a short amount of time.

“I think the government’s really pushing to get one just to say that they got one so I feel like I would want to look at the research to see if they actually did enough research instead of just like forging stuff and doing some bad research just to get it out for the sake of it.” Phoenix said.

But despite their concerns, every student we spoke to said that if the FDA approved the vaccine, they would take it.

IU senior Jestin Lauer said even though he is unsure if the vaccine would be effective, he would still be willing to take it to play a part in ending the pandemic.

“”I would take it just because even if it doesn’t work out I would like to be like a test subject just to see if it doesn’t work out,” Lauer said.