[xnyan]

It sounds like in judgment of which is worse: over or underestimating the risks of the virus versus taking additional time for more testing.

How many other nations are doing this besides Russia? Why not? If you’re asking me to make a bet, I’m going to side with the vast majority of nation-states. not a guarantee by any means, but the best choice unless I decide to go back to school to study viral infections.

[kurthr]

If the virus was 10x more deadly (if it was 10x more contagious we'd almost all have it by now), I'd probably advocate for even more accelerated testing and deployment (we're close to the edge for full deployment over the next 9 months even in developed countries as it is). It's a trade-off between deaths from the virus and from a vaccine... once the vaccine is 100x lower risk than the virus you start rolling out to high risk profiles (front line medical and essential workers along with 60+ / pre-existing) since they have disproportionate >10x risk of transmission & death... then as production and deployment catch up roll out to medium (30s-50s especially with kids) after another 3-6 months and eventually low risk profiles (those 20s and under without kids or pre-existing conditions). That extra 6 month delay balances some of the risk between virus and vaccine. Since we'll have several different vaccines to choose from we can also pick the most effective ones that have the lowest side effects for later inoculation, while higher risk groups just need some protection today.