This isn't "fast" we just have low expectations of our government. The FDA in the US is taking 3 weeks to reviews, about 5-10% of the entire time to develop this is just to schedule this (3rd to last) meeting. All while over a thousand people die per day (so during this waiting period something like 10x the lives of 9/11).
We just spent 9 months trying to lift the ban on this vaccine. We have the technology to beat pandemics, we only lack the regulatory structure.
Vaccines are typically so safe and effective that for high risk populations taking a completely untested vaccine would be expected to (a) be effective and (b) safer than covid. So approving this was maybe the easiest call in medical history, and from first principles could have taken 1 day to approve for high risk groups.
We need a regulatory framework for fast approval anyway, if we ever want to have personalized medicine. With mRNA vaccines now in play, we can beat so many things if the regulatory environment lets us.
1) BioNTech/Pfizer haven't "just" tested for safety (I'm implying that's what you meant with your "trying to lift the ban" hyperbole), they have also used the clinical trials to single out one particular candidate out of at least four initial candidates for best expected efficacy. And they have used the trials to evaluate the best dosage. Medical trials are about much more than just the safety aspect.
2) It's easy to say "we could simply have broadly distributed this vaccine back in March" now in hindsight. However, in March, there were serious doubts about whether it would even work, considering the entire technology hadn't ever yielded a fully approved commercial vaccine.
3) I don't want to highlight this once more, but COVID-19 wouldn't be so deadly if the US hadn't fucked up its response in every possible way, and some that were thought to be impossible. A good part of those "over a thousand people dying per day" are self-inflicted and have nothing to do with any vaccine tests or vaccine approval timelines.
There have been many hundreds, possibly thousands of candidate vaccines in development through the year. It's not as if this one vaccine has been sitting by itself on a shelf with regulators umming and aahing about whether to try it or not. Hundreds of labs have been working on a myriad of different approaches, the vast majority of which have been cast aside. As of September there were still over 300 in development and right now there are almost 30 in clinical trials.
While vaccines that have made it through the regulatory process have for the most part been extremely safe, without that process we have no idea if the vaccine is going to cause more problems than it solves.
We just spent 9 months trying to lift the ban on this vaccine. We have the technology to beat pandemics, we only lack the regulatory structure.
Vaccines are typically so safe and effective that for high risk populations taking a completely untested vaccine would be expected to (a) be effective and (b) safer than covid. So approving this was maybe the easiest call in medical history, and from first principles could have taken 1 day to approve for high risk groups.
We need a regulatory framework for fast approval anyway, if we ever want to have personalized medicine. With mRNA vaccines now in play, we can beat so many things if the regulatory environment lets us.