Initially, plans for the huge clinical trial were proceeding apace.
After months of groundwork, about 1,000 different sites were identified in 42 countries. And a key meeting involving trial investigators and coordinators from around the U.S. and Europe was scheduled to review protocols and compare notes. But then the coronavirus struck.
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If seasonal flu kills up to 650,000 people per year and medical systems can handle that, the disruption from COVID-19 should be manageable with proactive steps that governments around the world are already initiating. The interest in COVID-19 is so high, there will be tremendous resources allocated to come up with medical solutions, like the Apollo program to land on the moon. This will mitigate the impact. All of the worst case estimates assume that we passively let it run its course without these major new medical initiatives.