@inquiline

Trial requirements designed to limit access (unstoppable force) meet societal normalcy bias (immovable object) that had already tanked uptake under the prior regime. (Less than one in five Usian adults got vaccinated in the latest round; half as many Usian children.)

Clearly, if ours were a society with popular investment in ongoing public health measures, any placebo study would be difficult for reason of not being able to find folk willing to risk not being given the vaccine.

Of course, we've now had six years to develop or import any of dozens of inactivated virus (19th century tech) or subunit (1980s tech) vaccines, yet thus far only one of the latter has entered the Usian market, and has been challenging to access even in a major metropolitan area like NYC.

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