China vaccine use?

[WTS]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/as ... uxbndlbing

How risky is a move like this? Should the U.S., and other nations, release their vaccines? People are dying, but how much does this strain medical ethics? China's army has been vaccinated, has anyone heard about any results or negative effects? Has anyone heard how the Russian vaccine is doing? Is there no way to speed up the West's Phase-III trials?

[Jonazz]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/as ... uxbndlbing

How risky is a move like this? Should the U.S., and other nations, release their vaccines? People are dying, but how much does this strain medical ethics? China's army has been vaccinated, has anyone heard about any results or negative effects? Has anyone heard how the Russian vaccine is doing? Is there no way to speed up the West's Phase-III trials?

How long do you think these trials normally take?

[Neil-B]

Phase III can take several years to complete (under normal circumstances) ... large number of participants (1000s), double blind against other forms of treatment, of sufficient period to show up likely side effects iirc

[bruce]

The US is skipping the double blind step. I saw a call for volunteers but decided against it. In the normal method they blindly give 1000s of people either the drug or a placebo. Then they wait until random parcipants either get the virus or don't. Statistics eventually become visible.

In the acccelerated method, ALL of the volunteers will be injected with the virus. THis is ethically questionable. Do I want somebody to intentionally give me an incurable disease just to see whether my symptoms are better/worse than somebody else who got a different blind dose of something. As far as I'm concerned, I choose to opt-out.