"Wait–he is afraid that 20 people out of 10,000 (or maybe 5,000, or whatever number get the placebo) won’t catch the virus by going about their normal activities?"
Sure! You have to understand that clinical trials where you "challenge" a vaccine by deliberately inoculation of live disease to test the effectiveness of a vaccine are both more dangerous and politically harder to get approval for. There's a real moral dilemma too. Giving an experimental vaccine to people then waiting to see if they are resistant when just living normally takes a minimal risk.
And if the test subject isn't exposed, you learn nothing. So you need a big sample, preferably where & when the exposure risk is high. Concentration Camps like Cuomo's nursing home abbatiors for example.
But still, if new COVID cases are so rare that it is hard to test vaccines, it is long past time to end the absurd shutdowns that have blighted hundreds of millions of lives.
The CDC just came out with a report that should be earth-shattering to the narrative of the political class, yet it will go into the thick pile of vital data and information about the virus that is not getting out to the public. For the first time, the CDC has attempted to offer a real estimate of the overall death rate for COVID-19, and under its most likely scenario, the number is 0.26%. Officials estimate a 0.4% fatality rate among those who are symptomatic and project a 35% rate of asymptomatic cases among those infected, which drops the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) to just 0.26% — almost exactly where Stanford researchers pegged ita month ago.
Hmmm......
Until now, we have been ridiculed for thinking the death rate was that low, as opposed to the 3.4% estimate of the World Health Organization, which helped drive the panic and the lockdowns. Now the CDC is agreeing to the lower rate in plain ink.
Plus, ultimately we might find out that the IFR is even lower because numerous studies and hard counts of confined populations have shown a much higher percentage of asymptomatic cases. Simply adjusting for a 50% asymptomatic rate would drop their fatality rate to 0.2% – exactly the rate of fatality Dr. John Ionnidis of Stanford University projected.
Saw tonight on the "news" that WHO is preaching about "another wave coming" and "this first wave may not be over" and "we can't unlock everything yet because there are new hotspots and the virus isn't done".
Despite CDCs numbers. Despite raw data like above. Despite...FACTS.