[pwinnski]

This is an incredibly weird take.

The process has been incredibly dramatically shortened, but without actually rushing. All of the data required for an EUA is still required. Some timelines have been permitted to be shortened in exchange for dramatically increasing the number of people involved in trials, but they haven't been allowed to be shortened beyond what we know about biological response times. People at press conferences may use general terms like "in a few days," but that's not because they're treating this casually, it's because humans communicate in human ways when talking to other humans. If you're on the FDA, you know the timeline to a T, but if you're part of the general public, "December" and "April" are all you really need.

The FDA has been heavily involved in every step of the trials, which is how things have moved as quickly as they have.

These are the fastest any vaccine has ever been created or approved, by more than four years!

[ishmandoo]

Definitely agree that the vaccine development has been a huge success. Just wondering about (what appears to me to be) slack in the process that could be removed. Another commenter suggests that the drug companies and the FDA are already in close communication including trial data.

[pwinnski]

That is always the case, yes.

I guess I'm left wondering why you wrote a whole post of your own to ask questions that you could have answered by searching for the large amount of information that is already out there about this process, possibly the most-closely-tracked vaccine development process in history. But hey, it's a free internet, more or less.