Social media discussions of potential COVID-19 remedies were perceived as "fake news" due to the subjective and non-standardized nature of experiences shared on social media. However, the one-year timeline to develop the COVID-19 vaccine was also unprecedented and aspects of vaccine development, testing, and production resembled "fake news". Ultimately, for businesses to produce vaccines at scale, governments had to provide funding guarantees to make vaccine production financially viable and reduce production uncertainties.