Now, now, be fair. You can’t really say they bypassed the animal trials. At best you can only say the animal trials were discontinued (because all the animals died).
The animals didn’t die. The mice and rhesus macaques were all fine and all showed proper immune response to the vaccines.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03275-y
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01092-3
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(21)00084-0/fulltext