Because the FDA prohibited rapid “challenge trials”—where volunteers take the vaccine and then expose themselves to the virus in a lab, rather than waiting agonizing months to see how many catch the virus “in the wild.” The tragic truth is that we are ruled by a cowardly medical bureaucracy, one that would rather allow hundreds of thousands of people to die than face any potential criticism for allowing an accelerated vaccine trial. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government did both: (a) It used force, via the FDA, to prevent people from voluntarily taking a highly effective vaccine that existed since the start of the pandemic; and (b) it forced people to take actions which they did not think best—such as closing their businesses.