At least for Moderna, it wasn’t pure luck to pick them. I was following it from near the beginning, and there was really solid data coming out on its effectiveness. Pfizer/Bio took a nearly identical approach.
And overspending by buying a hundred million doses of each of the 20 vaccines STILL would’ve been a massive bargain.
Moderna and Pfizer are the "best" vaccines but it doesn't matter that much - everyone of them out there is good enough. The flu shot is only 50% effective, and all of these are better.
Some like AZ report low top line numbers like 60%, but you can look at the number of severe cases needing hospitalization. It's still approximately zero.
And overspending by buying a hundred million doses of each of the 20 vaccines STILL would’ve been a massive bargain.