The pitfalls of vaccines
After my earlier article, I thought I’d endorse my belief that antiviral combination therapy rather than vaccines will be the way to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, an FDA vaccine official suggested an increased vaccine “threshold” of 70% efficacy and 70% population coverage. However, if any such effective vaccine[s] become available, which seems particularly unlikely before early 2021, it will be challenging to achieve 70% vaccine uptake by the general population. This is especially true if effective antiviral alternatives — besides remdesivir (GILD) — gain an Emergency Use