The early quick rollout of vaccines were solely to alleviate public fear. People, out of a media driven fear of covid, were letting governments all over the world take unprecedented power grabs. In order to stop that, there needed to be an alternative to covid measures for a fearful public.
I'm almost afraid to read a book after seeing its associated movie if I enjoyed the movie, because then I don't usually enjoy the movie as much afterward. Books can delve so much deeper into the plot lines than the movie, that it will almost certainly disappoint in relation to the story as told in the book.
I saw the movie when it came out. Chilling to watch in thr waning days of the Cold War that we had lived with at the time. I have always wondered at the opening scene if such a force in real life would have opened fire on what was obviously a group of students watching from a classroom window.