Inside STAT: Infect volunteers with Covid-19? A proposal lays bare a minefield of issues

Challenge trials — in which volunteers are purposefully, but carefully, infected with a pathogen — are a tool used by researchers to better understand how pathogens not only infect people, but also respond to possible vaccines and drugs. The idea to conduct such trials in the quest for a Covid-19 vaccine is now being floated by some scientists. Challenge trials are already controversial, but they are now facing an added level of skepticism and backlash. Some argue that since there is no reliable treatment for Covid-19, and so volunteers who are infected cannot be safely protected from severe illness or death. Others argue that it would take a long time to even develop the right model under which to conduct a challenge study. STAT's Helen Branswell has more here.