In 1993, the WHO declared TB, an airborne infectious disease, a global public health emergency and urged coordinated efforts by all nations to avert millions of deaths in the coming years.1 On January 30, 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19, another airborne infectious disease, a public health emergency of international concern.2 However, the similarity between the global responses to these two pandemics ends there. What we have witnessed in the past 2 years in terms of the scientific, public health, medical, and pharmaceutical communities to COVID-19 is nothing short of spectacular. Within 2 weeks of declaring COVID-19 a global emergency, the WHO had convened a meeting of experts and issued a research roadmap.3 National governments, especially that of the United States, rapidly committed vast sums of money into research at all levels, from basic virology and immunology to clinical care and prevention. Pharmaceutical companies launched development programs for new products to diagnose, treat and prevent COVID-19. As a result, diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines have been developed at a dizzying pace, delivering an array of tools that provide us with the means to control and end the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The effective and equitable deployment of those tools is a challenge of monumental proportions, but no one can claim that science has been found wanting in responding to the global crisis.