The idea you agreed with was lying to people about vital medical information. This seems like a recipe for more panic, not less.
Moreover, it would further undermine public confidence in not only government leadership but the public health officials who would have to go along with this deception, leaving the public with no trust in official stories and further fueling anti-vaccination sentiments. I cannot think of a more destructive policy of trying to calm public fears.
The way to get people to “don’t panic” is to be honest about what is known and what is unknown, provide the best public health guidance, and focus on supporting people on the front lines with equipment and medical supplies while ensuring that potentially infectious people remain isolated without fear that they are going to be evicted or won’t be able to buy food. The way to ensure panic is to give false confidence that will be revealed in evidence and otherwise attempt to manipulate the public with lies and deception.
As for the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, even if we skipped trials and started producing a vaccine today, there wouldn’t be enough available in quantity for several months by which time the virus, based upon what we know about its infectiousness and the lackadaisical public attitude about isolation measures, will already have infected a majority of the population. A hypothetical vaccine is really to protect the relatively small number of at-risk people who effectively quarantined themselves, and frankly it may be difficult to find enough low-risk uninfected people to even perform phase 3 clinical trials.
If the government tried to lie about magically coming up with an effective vaccine today, immunologists would immediately call bullshit, and it would take very little forensic analysis to reveal the deception. It would be a stupid, pointless, and easily revealed lie, just like lying about the size of a crowd at a major public event with extensive photo coverage.
Stranger
What does getting people not to panic look like? Telling them the coronavirus is not a big deal? That they shouldn’t take it so seriously? That it’s just like the flu?
Isn’t that the approach that Trump, Fox News, et al were taking early on?
They were not tested for safety in part because there was no way of testing for efficacy, the viruses having disappeared. Even if they had samples, how can you ethically test them. But I think the SARS vaccine gives a good starting point.
While I understand the need for testing, maybe in a case like this where people are dying by the hundreds of thousands, you should damn the possible torpedoes and go straight ahead into testing whether it works. On volunteers, but I would gladly be at the head of the line.