St. Petersburg, Fl. - While cases of the coronavirus and hospitalizations thereof are climbing in Florida, there has been positive news this week on the development of a vaccine.

Biotech firm Moderna Inc., along with the National Institutes of Health said they're ready to move onto the largest study of the potential vaccine's efficacy at the end of the month.

It's the fastest a vaccine has been developed for a novel virus.

It begs the question, are the scientists moving too quickly?

Spectrum News spoke to Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital’s Dr. Allison Messina, who’s the Chief of Infectious Disease and Medical Director of Infection Prevention at the hospital.

Dr. Messina explained how the process works.

Stage 1: Looks for safety or rather there are no side effects when someone gets the vaccine coupled with someone building the immunity.

Stage 2: Targets the vaccine on a specific larger group.

Stage 3: Determines how effective it works on an even larger group (compared to a control group), while also looking for no side effects.

Dr. Messina said she's cautiously optimistic about the current speed at which the vaccine is getting developed.

But, she added there are safeguards because the quicker the vaccine develops the more scrutiny the process will have.

“To get a vaccine from concept to market is done in a very regimented way,” said Dr. Messina.  “And is reviewed by lots and lots of scientists and regulatory bodies all along that process to make sure that product does what it says it's going to do and is safe for use in the population."

Dr. Messina told Spectrum News each bio-firm will determine their vaccine’s effectiveness.

Although, she said it’s a standard process that goes through the scientific peer review before it goes to mass production.

The stage 3 trials are expected to be the first in the United States and they'll begin in a couple of weeks.