Better Planning of COVID-19 Vaccine Trials

The world is desperate for a reliable vaccine against COVID-19. However, the pressure for such rapid introduction could lead to deployment of a vaccine that may be weakly effective.

In order to avoid this from happening, three issues must be considered when planning COVID-19 vaccine trials. These include proof of vaccine efficacy and worthwhile efficacy, whether these trials should prioritise single-vaccine or multivaccine trials and whether the assessment of long-term safety and protection should be evaluated during follow-up and before an effective vaccine is deployed for the general public.

The problem is that most nations are under immense political and economic pressure to introduce a COVID-19 vaccine. This pressure could result in the deployment of a weak vaccine which could be the output of a misleading promising result from an underpowered trial. This could be disastrous because the deployment of a weak vaccine could worsen the pandemic. If people begin to think they are protected and immune, they could relax with respect to complying with COVID-19 control measures. This could put them and other people at risk of contracting the virus. Also, because a vaccine would be deployed, other clinical trials in process of evaluating other vaccines would be hindered because their vaccine would be compared with this vaccine instead of a placebo. And in case the vaccine that is being compared to the already deployed weak vaccine is even weaker, the weak vaccine would be classified as superior (even though both vaccines are weak).