Vaccines are essential to fighting back the coronavirus. If one gets authorized in the next few months, what will that mean for 2021? One expert put it this way to me: get ready for “complexity and chaos and confusion.” Here’s my preview for @nytimes nytimes.com/2020/10/12/hea… 1/9
The first vaccine may be mediocre. A superior one may still be in development. But the first vaccine’s authorization could immediately affect all the other vaccines still in Phase 3 trials—and could seriously hamper vaccines in earlier stages of research. 2/9
To have enough doses for the whole country by the spring, the US government is counting on several vaccines getting emergency authorization. But guidelines for choosing between them could be very challenging, because their trials are all running separately. 3/9
Tony Fauci told me that there were discussions for a different kind of trial—one like the WHO is about to run—testing several vaccines head to head. 4/9
That didn’t happen. 5/9
“You have to have the total cooperation of the pharmaceutical companies to get involved in a master protocol,” Fauci told me. “That — I don’t know what the right word is — didn’t turn out to be feasible.” 6/9
Vaccine trials and regulations are complicated, by necessity. Understanding that complexity is going to be crucial over the year to come. 7/9
I hope my story today is a useful introduction to that complexity. nytimes.com/2020/10/12/hea… 8/9
PS: For those who finish today's piece and ask, "What about kids?"--I wrote last month that no trials for kids had started. Update: still no US trials for kids. The goal of having shots ready for them by fall 2021 may be slipping further away. nytimes.com/2020/09/21/par… 9/9
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