I really hope people will take a more "effective altruism" approach to those 18 months with all the people dying. I'm guessing just with logistic and bureaucrat

I really hope people will take a more "effective altruism" approach to those 18 months with all the people dying. I'm guessing just with logistic and bureaucratic prioritizing we can shave 6 months (somebody mentioned above that it takes months just to set up testing with the large number of volunteers. Sure, normally it does, but definitely not today). Beyond that we can probably cut another 6 months with judicious strategizing. Have certain populations defined that are high risk and high exposure - like elderly health care professionals - and start using the vaccine before the approval is complete. You might actually mix this with early testing and have the volunteers be actual beneficiaries. This way you get efficiency results from the field - it's trivial to implement a double blind and measure infection rates. Lots of things can be done, if one is willing to look at the letter of the rule and re-think if it's applicable now.