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You can still measure: the immune response, antibodies, white blood cells, scenarios in which the contagion can spread, minimal social distance needed, length o

by ericb 6y ago

You can still measure: the immune response, antibodies, white blood cells, scenarios in which the contagion can spread, minimal social distance needed, length of exposure required for transmission, how much masks stop transmission, safety (risk reduction), and peak efficacy. You can do it on a much shorter timescale, and with fewer lives lost. What if we had needed to iterate to fix problems in the vaccine? How many would die waiting? To your specific question, you still derisk it for the elderly. If it causes problems in young adults, you quit because it would probably cause even more problems in riskier groups. If it doesn't, you move forward into older groups. Let's not pretend you would learn nothing that would speed things along. Some of these questions aren't answered quantitatively even now.

oldgradstudent 6y ago
> You can still measure: the immune response, antibodies, white blood cells, scenarios in which the contagion can spread, minimal social distance needed, length of exposure required for transmission, how much masks stop transmission, safety (risk reduction), and peak efficacy. [...] Of course. These are all great uses for challenge studies, I was responding specifically to testing the vaccine using a challenge study on healthy young adults. > If it causes problems in young adults, you quit because it would probably cause even more problems in riskier groups. If it doesn't, you move forward into older groups. It turns out that both Pfizer and Moderna trials have shown much more adverse reactions in the young than the old. Testing on the wrong population may result in rejecting a vaccine that could be perfectly safe on the at-risk population, but inappropriate for the general population. > Let's not pretend you would learn nothing that would speed things along Of course not. You could learn a lot, just not about the safety and efficacy profile of the vaccine on the at-risk population.

by ericb 6y ago

oldgradstudent 6y ago

> You can still measure: the immune response, antibodies, white blood cells, scenarios in which the contagion can spread, minimal social distance needed, length of exposure required for transmission, how much masks stop transmission, safety (risk reduction), and peak efficacy. [...] Of course. These are all great uses for challenge studies, I was responding specifically to testing the vaccine using a challenge study on healthy young adults. > If it causes problems in young adults, you quit because it would probably cause even more problems in riskier groups. If it doesn't, you move forward into older groups. It turns out that both Pfizer and Moderna trials have shown much more adverse reactions in the young than the old. Testing on the wrong population may result in rejecting a vaccine that could be perfectly safe on the at-risk population, but inappropriate for the general population. > Let's not pretend you would learn nothing that would speed things along Of course not. You could learn a lot, just not about the safety and efficacy profile of the vaccine on the at-risk population.