Such massive media coverage before actual outcomes smells .. not right.
Don’t get appendicitis when your local hospitals are setting up tent cities to cope with the demand.
Also, this is a relatively small biotech (when compared to Pfizer and the like) which has been publicly traded for about a year now, and this kind of company depends on a good news flow in order to keep investors happy. After all, they have not yet made any money yet, and costs have been going through the roof lately due to investments into vaccine development and manufacturing.
If this vaccine works as well as reported, it is a huge accomplishment and deserves celebration. Those responsible for the vaccine should definitely be rewarded. However, it's dangerous to make celebrities out of scientists.
Besides, this vaccine wasn't the work of two individuals. BioNTech alone is a publicly traded company with almost two thousand employees, and there were likely many more from Pfizer and elsewhere assisting them with this project.
I do think it's important for us as a society to recognize and highlight the names of people who make important contributions to science because it sets a good example for the kinds of contributions that others (i.e. kids) can aspire to make in the future.
Also celebrities can do good things. Bill Gates is a celebrity (in a way), and has helped us a lot with vaccines and pandemics, and that’s definitely not his historical area of expertise.
If you're not watching/listening to both mainstream and alternative sources (podcasts, former news people who have been cancelled, people like Rogan, Megan Kelly, No Agenda) you're missing out on at least to 1/3 to 1/2 of the analysis that's desperately needed.
When it comes to the main stream media, this whole fucking decade reeks of corruption.