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So, you'd have to tell the participants that they're going to be deliberately exposed to the virus; I don't think you're going to get a representative sample of
by andreareina 6y ago
So, you'd have to tell the participants that they're going to be deliberately exposed to the virus; I don't think you're going to get a representative sample of the population agreeing to that.
- sterlind 6y agoPeople volunteer for military service even during wars, but you're right. Challenge trials won't be brimming with 75-year olds, the same way 75-year olds don't enlist. You'd learn that the vaccine works on healthy 20-somethings though, and that might have been enough for approval.
- andreareina 6y agoShould it be?
- snovv_crash 6y agoIf you can prevent 20 and 30 year olds from being infected, you might just manage to halt the spread of the virus even if you don't confer individual immunity onto older people.
- BurningFrog 6y agoYou can recruit the demographics you need by paying them enough. Challenge trials need far fewer people, so paying each one $1M is feasible.
- maxerickson 6y agoYeah, I dunno. I don't see why there couldn't be a challenge arm to a trial that also did a larger group with no challenges. The challenge arm wouldn't have any influence over the other arm (and likely not much impact on recruitment), but might provide results for some groups much faster. Starting vaccinations on younger healthcare workers in August seems like it would have been a win (assuming they had data to justify it by that point).