You don't implement a placebo outside of clinical trials

Unless it was planned to dampen the blow for reasons of plausible deniability, and why the boosters were pushed so hard. These people also love their plausible deniability. It's their MO.

You don't get Emergency Use Authorization for a placebo

Unless the regulatory bodies were involved.

You don't take people to jail for administering sailene when them receiving a placebo was even a chance.

You do if you were administering saline in places where you were meant to hit a certain threshold of hot injections.