The stereotype is that the public sector is slow, lazy, etc.

Then why does the governments of countries like the US always have cutting edge technology compared to the private sector?

Cryptography, robotics, AI, prosthetics, aircraft, etc

Even today with COVID-19 testing. The US government has developed a early alert test that identifies carriers before they become infectious which the private sector failed to do.

The Ebola vaccine was created by a Canadian federal lab

What’s the deal here?