To be fair, they did try (to a certain extent). The reason that we have as many vaccines as we do is because the US, UK & EU poured money into all of the vaccine efforts.
I'm also super disappointed at the lack of ambition, to be honest (every human should be vaccinated by EOY if we actually want this to be done), but given my experience running much smaller scale logistics, I'm amazed we've done as well as we have.
As I note above, the US Feds could definitely have done better, as could the EU, but there's a sense of deference to private providers which I find unwarranted, and which could be the cause of the slowness.
I also don’t understand why we need to negotiate with the private sector at all. This is a crisis. Set a fair price. Mandate an open license, open up manufacturing to anyone and everyone who can do it and just start doing it. Regarding supply chain difficulties we can also throw money at that. For sure there are people and companies who can solve each individual problem if given the resources. Right now we don’t have the luxury of efficiency we just need to get it done.