[Farm93]

Just to be clear, I don't see any of this as a panacea, just that our only conceivable way out of this without mass mortality is a vaccine, so we should be doing whatever we can to speed up that process.

Also, BC, wouldn't exploration of adverse effects be for a normal trial (presumably run at the same time as the challenge trial)? You don't need to expose someone to live virus to see if they react poorly to the vaccine itself. So you could conceivably use much smaller numbers of young, healthy people for the challenge trial and then the normal size/age distribution for the standard trial.

I think everyone likes the idea of speeding up the process.  The catch is the nation's collective understanding of the timeline, success rate and costs are all off.

The all in effort probably is needed to get a vaccine before end of year 2021.   That would be an epic accomplishment, but as the USA citizens have been told it could happen much earlier a Dec 2021 result likely would be seen as a political loser with hearings and audits for years.

The chances that the all-in effort works is not really 100%.   People think Manhattan project, moon launch, etc.   But this acceleration could land in flying car or underground freeway territory.   Spend the money and get nothing is a possibility, and again I don't see this current administration walking the citizens through that possible result on the front end.

It is easy in April 2020 to say let's do everything when nothing seems to be available, but will taxpayers sing the same tune in 2022?  Especially if other countries developed solutions for a fraction of the costs? 

My guess is the GOP's preferred strategy will be to let private companies chart their own path with businesses conducting their own business risk assessment.   The profit potential and PR benefits are clear enough for most companies without the government trying to pick winners.

[Farm93]

Just to be clear, I don't see any of this as a panacea, just that our only conceivable way out of this without mass mortality is a vaccine, so we should be doing whatever we can to speed up that process.

Also, BC, wouldn't exploration of adverse effects be for a normal trial (presumably run at the same time as the challenge trial)? You don't need to expose someone to live virus to see if they react poorly to the vaccine itself. So you could conceivably use much smaller numbers of young, healthy people for the challenge trial and then the normal size/age distribution for the standard trial.

I think everyone likes the idea of speeding up the process.  The catch is the nation's collective understanding of the timeline, success rate and costs are all off.

The all in effort probably is needed to get a vaccine before end of year 2021.   That would be an epic accomplishment, but as the USA citizens have been told it could happen much earlier a Dec 2021 result likely would be seen as a political loser with hearings and audits for years.

The chances that the all-in effort works is not really 100%.   People think Manhattan project, moon launch, etc.   But this acceleration could land in flying car or underground freeway territory.   Spend the money and get nothing is a possibility, and again I don't see this current administration walking the citizens through that possible result on the front end.

It is easy in April 2020 to say let's do everything when nothing seems to be available, but will taxpayers sing the same tune in 2022?  Especially if other countries developed solutions for a fraction of the costs? 

My guess is the GOP's preferred strategy will be to let private companies chart their own path with businesses conducting their own business risk assessment.   The profit potential and PR benefits are clear enough for most companies without the government trying to pick winners.