Because the Federal Drug Administration likes killing people, that's why

A piece in The Guardian asks an interesting and important question:

An app could catch 98.5% of all Covid-19 infections. Why isn't it available?

Adrienne Matei

These inventions could help our coronavirus crisis now. But delays mean they may not be adopted until the worst of the pandemic is behind us

So why these delays? One technology is that cough into your phone idea. Another is a sterilizable and thus reusable N95 mask. The article actually gives us the answer too:

According to Adam Wentworth, a research engineer working on the mask, they are still fundraising to create the final prototype. Whenever the fundraising is complete – there is no fixed deadline – they would have to submit it for approval by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. This is a process that could take around six months, even with emergency prioritization.

It is the FDA that is causing the delays. As Alex Tabbarok has been pointing out with ever increasing volume. Not preparing paperwork in advance. Not bringing forward a scheduled meeting - no, really, in the middle of a pandemic the FDA would not, until really shouted at, bring forward a scheduled vaccine approval meeting - and even banning a home testing kit because, umm, because.

The problem is bureaucracy. Well, it’s either just that or the FDA has, as an institution, a predeliction for killing people. The solution, whichever the cause, being the evisceration of said bureaucracy of course. We’d even chip in for the necessary - metaphorical, of course - gralloching knife.

As we’ve been known to point out sometimes the problem really is too much government.