What I want to know is how people sign up for these trials like remdesivir. I’m sure many would agree to take an experimental antiviral but what about the placebo arm.. These are patients with severe disease and half are given nothing? How do you get consent on that and even if you do how can you be sure the patient understands what is happening?
I don’t see an issue with the challenge trials as much since the pool is (I assume) healthy and low risk and, without a vaccine, they’re likely to get the disease eventually anyway. Seems no different than donating an organ or being a fireman.
Should be consent before selection into either group. In this case, it's probably purely based on location. I'd be more interested in how they get consent at all for some of the severe cases since they might not be conscious, and definitely don't have anyone with them in hospital.