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If tens or hundreds of thousands of people were dying every day from the virus, might we find many volunteers willing to be intentionally exposed to the virus i

If tens or hundreds of thousands of people were dying every day from the virus, might we find many volunteers willing to be intentionally exposed to the virus in order to rapidly test the efficacy of a vaccine? I imagine so. I believe the magnitude of this pandemic will in time push us (rather violently) to think outside the box.

majewsky 7y ago
Even if volunteers take the vaccine, this will not significantly change the timeline. Do you really want to cut short the observation time to e.g. 1 month, then greenlight the vaccine and administer it to millions or billions of people, only to find out that after 6 months it causes an aneurysm or whatever in 10% of them?
- refurb 7y ago
  That's a key issue. If you're testing a drug for a serious cancer, then there is a lot of tolerance for side effects - the alternative is death, so even if it causes things like nerve damage, it's an acceptable risk. With vaccines, you're going to treat a huge percentage of the population and they'll be healthy when you give it to them. As such, the risk-benefit analysis is much different since there is a chance for serious harm.
- trashtester 7y ago
  Start by 100 people, monitor for 1 month. If it looks promising, add 1000 people, monitor for 1 month. If it looks promising, add 10000 people, monitor for 1 month. If it looks promising, add 100000 people, monitor for 1 month. If it looks promising, add 1000000 people, monitor for 1 month. And so on. The exact rate could be set according to the actual infection and death rates in the population. Given the current costs of curfew, we could create an entire government agency just to administer this, and still save trillions. For inspiration, consider the Manhatten project.
ahpearce 7y ago
> rapidly test the efficacy of a vaccine How do you test the efficacy if you don't know who you're injecting? Maybe it works really well on a certain population, and reacts harmfully to people with some pre-existing genetic trait or condition. You wouldn't know, because you took a random set of volunteers. If you're going to counter and say "we'd still do the pre-analysis on the volunteers"... Well, that's what takes time.

majewsky 7y ago

Even if volunteers take the vaccine, this will not significantly change the timeline. Do you really want to cut short the observation time to e.g. 1 month, then greenlight the vaccine and administer it to millions or billions of people, only to find out that after 6 months it causes an aneurysm or whatever in 10% of them?

refurb 7y ago
That's a key issue. If you're testing a drug for a serious cancer, then there is a lot of tolerance for side effects - the alternative is death, so even if it causes things like nerve damage, it's an acceptable risk. With vaccines, you're going to treat a huge percentage of the population and they'll be healthy when you give it to them. As such, the risk-benefit analysis is much different since there is a chance for serious harm.
trashtester 7y ago
Start by 100 people, monitor for 1 month. If it looks promising, add 1000 people, monitor for 1 month. If it looks promising, add 10000 people, monitor for 1 month. If it looks promising, add 100000 people, monitor for 1 month. If it looks promising, add 1000000 people, monitor for 1 month. And so on. The exact rate could be set according to the actual infection and death rates in the population. Given the current costs of curfew, we could create an entire government agency just to administer this, and still save trillions. For inspiration, consider the Manhatten project.

ahpearce 7y ago

> rapidly test the efficacy of a vaccine How do you test the efficacy if you don't know who you're injecting? Maybe it works really well on a certain population, and reacts harmfully to people with some pre-existing genetic trait or condition. You wouldn't know, because you took a random set of volunteers. If you're going to counter and say "we'd still do the pre-analysis on the volunteers"... Well, that's what takes time.