[jyl]

They can speed things up. For example, they can do challenge trials - inoculate 5000 volunteers with vaccine or placebo, then intentionally infect 100% of them with SARS-COV-2. Ethical issues of course, but they could probably find 5,000 to volunteer with knowing consent. And of course any study participant who gets sick is promised all the HCQ they want :-) A challenge trial would be vastly faster and more powered than a traditional trial. Inoculating people and then waiting months or years for them to maybe get exposed and maybe not, or watch the trial get confounded by social distancing at some of the trial sites, I don’t think we’ll have a vaccine even in 2021 using the traditional processes.