It's actually a trolley problem within a trolley problem!

The decision whether to ban or approve the vaccines as they were developed was another example. The status quo is to ban vaccines until they meet criteria.

Ban a vaccine for those over 65, avoid the possibility of a side effect 100x than ever experienced (there has never been a vaccine entering phase 1 trials with over 1 in 100,000 expected risk of death).

Allow high risk people to voluntarily take the vaccine, most will work (about 85% of vaccines tested for efficacy succeed).

Society chose to ban the vaccine, killing hundreds of thousands of lives that could have been prevented. This pandemic is effectively solely a problem caused by this decision.