• Question: Did it effect your mental health knowing that people are dying because you could not create a vaccine sooner?

    Asked by salma on 31 Jan 2022.
    • Photo: Victoria Cox

      Victoria Cox answered on 31 Jan 2022:

      Hi Salma. I did not work on the vaccine so there are other people who can better answer this. However I would say that the vaccine was created in record time, at a speed that was years faster than any other vaccine! It could not have been researched/tested/completed/produced much faster than it was. Anyone who worked on the vaccine should be immensely proud of that work.

      In terms of mental health more generally during the pandemic – I’m sure lots of scientists all over the world struggled with this, especially scientists involved in policy, where they might recommend something but their governments do not follow the advice. There was also huge amounts of pressure on anyone doing COVID-19 related work, and especially in 2020 people were working very long hours trying to research as much as possible as fast as possible

    • Photo: Jonny Coates

      Jonny Coates answered on 31 Jan 2022:

      Similar to Victoria, I didn’t work on the vaccine so can’t comment on that aspect. I do however research the working culture in academia which includes mental health. There has been so much evidence to show that the mental health of scientists suffered a huge amount during the pandemic – largely due to work worries such as not being able to be in the lab, being behind, not being able to publish and so worries about being “forced out” of an academic career.

      The groups most impacted by this were PhD students, postdocs and female academics. Unfortunately, these groups are often the most impacted by anything negative in academia. I do know some people who were more public facing and they have definitely struggled, particularly with the abuse from anti-science/anti-vax people.

      Personally, before the pandemic I was a postdoc at a research institute in Cambridge and the working environment was extremely toxic – our PhD student quit the lab and I wasn’t far behind. My mental health was in a terrible place and initially made much worse when I put a complaint in to try and protect future lab members. For me, the pandemic gave me space and I was able to get the help I needed and ultimately quit my job. I then started the job I currently have and life is so much better!

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