[jrumbut]

You can quantify, perhaps by simulation, the amount that it's less solid.

What's balancing against that is continuing the trial means giving patients a placebo when you have evidence of a better treatment.

It's a really complex issue both scientifically and ethically.

[xiphias2]

The solution to this is changing the stopping criterion in the trial protocol description, so that the real confidence interval can be calculated for the trial _with_ stopping (which is very different from running the trial until the end).

[jrumbut]

Good point, I should have added prospectively to that.

But even then, more participants and more time for follow-ups is generally better all other things being equal (which they never are).

[xiphias2]

Things got extremely political around these experiments.

When 2 days ago Orban announced from nothing that they will provide Remdesivir to everyone, I knew that again they did something stupid...I want the experimental drug that Trump got, not some leftover drug with lots of side effects.

Now I know that it was not Orban who was screwed, but the whole EU.