They had done safety and effectiveness testing before deployment back then. These are retrospective studies using a real large dosing and placebo population.
The closest to “untested drug matter” that existed was the antibody cocktail that might have kept Trump alive.
They did all the normal steps in the US. It was faster because they had the full attention of the FDA (so zero admin delays), and they did some parts in parallel, risking wasting money if things did not work out.
The mRNA approach already had years of work prior to COVID, and was already reviewed for safety.
It's worth highlghting the importance of years of basic science-research and testing, all little pieces which were mostly there when we finally needed them, work that was always under-threat from people saying "what use is this, why would we ever need that?" (For which the pandemic is an implicit answe the pandemic answered: "Stuff like this!")
Among many of those collective small contributions that create a practical and effective outcome, one example of work thankfully done in advance:
> But the thing is, our vaccine is only generating the spikes itself, and we’re not mounting them on any kind of virus body. It turns out that, unmodified, freestanding Spike proteins collapse into a different structure. If injected as a vaccine, this would indeed cause our bodies to develop immunity.. but only against the collapsed spike protein. And the real SARS-CoV-2 shows up with the spiky Spike. The vaccine would not work very well in that case.
> In 2017 it was described how putting a double Proline substitution in just the right place would make the SARS-CoV-1 and MERS S proteins take up their ‘pre-fusion’ configuration, even without being part of the whole virus. This works because Proline is a very rigid amino acid. It acts as a kind of splint, stabilising the protein in the state we need to show to the immune system. The people that discovered this should be walking around high-fiving themselves incessantly. Unbearable amounts of smugness should be emanating from them. And it would all be well deserved.
The world was lucky the omicron mutation chose virulence over lethality - it could outcompete the older, more “effective” strains. This coupled with vaccines, isolation and antivirals (and treatment changes) kept the count down.
A different roll of the mutation dice might have made a sars that spread easily. That would have thinned out the middle aged folks.
One of the issues that I see looking back was authorities not recognizing the qualitative change that happened when Omicron came on the scene. It spread like wildfire, and its symptoms were relatively mild especially for those who were vaccinated. And at that point the sensible policy choice would have been to drop many of the mandates, but in many places they just doubled down harder and I think it was this final few months that led to the most extreme backlash.
There was no guarantee it was the last significant mutation. Long Covid is a thing which many are still fighting, so delaying eliminating restrictions was a safe decision. Vaccine uptake was not uniform.
people indeed were dying in droves. based on the study in sweden the vast majority of those deaths (>90%) were in the age bracket of 70 plus. aged care is already a massive issue thanks to money making being more important than having families and being human - our aging population could have been addressed here. obviously the immunocompromised and the elderly did benefit alongside pharma execs. still this seems like a 'protect the kids' type of excuse. why should I be happy that swathes of the youth had to sacrifice their bodies just so that their grandparents could live a few more years of luxury ? I'm saying this because I know multiple people that were affected negatively by coronavirus vaccines and they were all young.
