COVID-19 & US healthcare system - thread relapse

[robkelk]

Today during the briefing:

“We’re very close to a vaccine,” Trump said, before immediately contradicting himself. “We’re not close on testing” the vaccine, he clarified.

Does any of that make sense?

Sort of. IIRC there's something like 70 different vaccines being worked at for COVID-19, many of which are taking absurdly short routes to testing for effectiveness and safety. And I mean absurdly short routes, several vaccines have already had the requirement for animal testing waved for them because SARS-COV-2 is so new a virus we don't have a test animal we can use to do the animal trials on, and the work necessary to determine which animal if any is the best option would delay the vaccine testing process by months at best.

Many vaccines are getting to the stage they can be tested however, which means that in theory we do have a functional vaccine nearly to completion. We just don't know if any of those vaccines are sufficiently safe to use compared to the risk of not using the vaccine.

While SARS-COV-2 is new, SARS as a family of virii is not. I suspect the "it's new so we can't do animal testing" excuse doesn't hold water, but I'm not a biologist of any sort.

And if a vaccine is released without testing, I will insist that the people who allowed it to be released without testing be the first to receive it.

...

He also mused about ways to use disinfectants on people, “by injections inside or almost a cleaning.”

“It’d be interesting to check that,” the president said. “You’d have to use medical doctors.”

The DHS’s Bryan is asked about the president’s suggestions that disinfectants be injected into a person. “We don’t do that within our lab,” Bryan said.

“Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t work,” Trump interjected — but disinfectants like isopropyl alcohol definitely has an effect on “stationary objects.”

I am NOT taking an injection of Clorox. I don't care what the president* says.

Disinfectants also have an effect on non-stationary objects, and that effect is usually that the previously non-stationary object is definitely and fatally stationary now.

Related to my comment above: If the Nicknamer-in-Chief really thinks this is a good idea, he can set an example and do it himself first.