The mRNA vaccines certainly look like a break-through in vaccine technology and with that technology now being used, it should be a good base for future vaccines. However I think the biggest change society in the west should take from Covid-19 is better disease fighting preparations. A lot of countries managed to avoid Covid-19 almost alltogether. All nations should learn from this. There are plenty of steps to be taken which could mostly prevent the catastrophic results of Covid-19 so the 9 months it took now to get an approved vaccine would have been an acceptable waiting time.
- reporting of the initial outbreak in Wuhan was too slow, but still, many countries acted in time.
- whenever a local outbreak of a similar new disease is reported, all countries should immideately go on an alert level, so that when the disease starts to spread, they can act immediately. If efficient reactions had been taken in January, a lot of things had been easier.
- of course watch international travel closely. If you close down flights, close down all travels. It doesn't make sense to ban flights from China, when the virus was coming to the US from Italy. It doesn't make sense to ban EU travellers but allow them to enter relaying via Turkey. Even better: don't ban flight travel, but test on arrival, make a short quarantine mandatory, that is more effective.
- lock down quickly and hard where neccessary, especial with local outbreaks
and the by far biggest elephant in the room:
- better hygene overall. Everyone should own proper masks, FFP2 masks should be stock piled by the government in generous amounts. Going forward, if you have symptoms of any infectious disease, wear a fucking mask! Even if it is the common cold, there is absolutely no justification to spread them to strangers. Even if it is not a deadly pandemic, infectious diseases could be reduced considerably by masks and hand sanitizing/washing. The yearly flu is deadly enough, there are no reasons to let it spread so freely.