The Politics of a Health Crisis

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

NY Times COVID vaccine tracker

40 vaccines are in human clinical trials. Nine are in Phase 3. (Three of those are Chinese companies, so we might rule them out? But they are being tested in other countries. All three Chinese vaccines are approved for limited human use.)

Three vaccines not from Chinese companies are nearly ready. They won't be widely available by the end of 2020 because manufacturing, but one or two may well be released. Pfizer figures their studies will be complete next month.

Pfizer can claim their Phase III testing is "complete" and submit for approval whenever they want. And the FDA can decide to approve it for release if they want. But historically, Phase III has always been expected by the FDA to take a bare minimum of 1 year. Those are the rules that supposedly can't be circumvented, but if a vaccine passes out of Phase III in less than 1 year, then they have indeed been circumvented.