Which candidates will look the most successful? Keep in mind that success has several parts – efficacy against the virus, first of all, but also number of doses needed and the total amount of the actual agent that is being dosed. That, as mentioned above, is directly tied to manufacturing capacity. We could end up having to go with a slightly less efficacious treatment that can treat many more patients (and potential patients) versus a better one that has to be given at (say) five times the dose and would thus exceed the human race’s current capacity to produce it. Or versus a better-looking one (remember, these will be on limited data sets!) whose mode of production is just intrinsically more difficult. There will also be considerations about storage and shipment, stability of the production method, and many more: it’s going to be a hard call with a lot of variables involved.

Get ready for it later this summer and this fall, because this could get messy. There are surely going to be a lot of twists and turns, sudden reversals and surprises, and we should brace ourselves for the white water ahead. I think we’re going to come out of it with some real therapies – I really am optimistic about that – but there’s almost no way that it’s going to be a smooth process. . .