Replying here instead of the politics thread.
MRNA first, since that’s a lot easier to prove. This was back in early Sept. here’s their CEO was saying how they were going to slow down trial enrollment to make sure they had enough minorities. Because nothing is more important than minorities (to the left), especially in a country where they are, after all, just a minority of the population.
Moderna, one of the developers in the lead for a vaccine to prevent Covid-19, is slowing enrollment slightly in its large clinical trial to ensure it has sufficient representation of minorities most at risk for the disease, its chief executive said.
When the trial began, he had told CNBC in an interview that data could be available in October in “a really optimistic scenario; maybe November.”
Remember a really optimistic scenario would be one where the vaccine works very well and meets the earlier, weaker statistical tests at the interim reviews that have higher efficacy requirements (75-80% minimum, give or take) needed due to the smaller numbers of people. In the end, they would have 95% efficacy, so there’s a very good chance they could have meet that October optimistic scenario. Except at the start of October, they were still lamenting the lack of selfless minority volunteers and busy turning away lots of eager white volunteers for being the wrong color, so it was time for yet more delays…
Private contractors hired by Moderna Inc to recruit volunteers for its coronavirus vaccine trial failed to enroll enough Black, Latino and Native American participants to determine how well the vaccine works in these populations, company executives and vaccine researchers told Reuters.
To make up for the shortfall, Moderna slowed enrollment of its late-stage trial and instructed research centers to focus on increasing participation among minority volunteers, the company said.
two of the commercial firms said they had received overwhelming trial participation interest from white volunteers. Several researchers said they struggled to overcome the entrenched barriers that traditionally limit minority enrollment.
It was not until late October that they would finally complete enrollment of their trial, and at that point, they predicted it would be about another month before they would have results. And sure enough, they would end up announcing their trial results on Nov 30th and not be approved by the FDA until Dec 18th.
So they took an extra 1-2 months to find enough of the right people to bribe into joining their trial, thereby slowing down the time they would need to reach two months of post-second-dose vaccination safety data and consequently eventual FDA approval.
How much sooner would that have been without all the racial handwringing and pandering? Let’s say it would have been one month faster, although maybe it would have been more. In December, 77,000 Americans died of covid. January may well be worse, TBD, but the point is that the sooner you start the vaccinations, the sooner you prevent that last, worst month from happening in the exponential spread of the virus. So their leftist sensibilities probably cost 100,000 deaths due to their delays. But hey, it was a really close election and good news too early, well, that would have costs more important than other peoples’ lives.