There could be a silver lining to the rise in coronavirus cases in the United States — it could speed up the arrival of a vaccine.
Let’s connect the dots!
Whether you want to call it a second surge or another wave, coronavirus cases are on the way back up. It's not just in the U.S. but across Europe as well. This comes as researchers around the world are frantically working to develop a vaccine, with a few now in the all important and massive final trial.
Trials test vaccine against placebo
In a recent interview one researcher at Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital said this new rise in cases could help speed up that final trial.
That’s because during that stage, they take hundreds if not thousands of volunteers and inject some with a vaccine candidate and others with a placebo. They then wait to see if the vaccine group develops less infections than the placebo group.
Coronavirus exposure could mean quicker trials
If coronavirus is spreading rapidly among populations where the vaccines are being tested, they may not have to wait so long to see if they work.
But even with this accelerated pace, experts still say most of us should not expect to get access to a vaccine until sometime in 2021.