Helen MacDonald

So I think we should hear from them.

So the theory is very interesting, but what do we know about the reality in humans who are actually infected with the coronavirus or might become infected?

From its use in other conditions, do we know anything about the harms that this drug might cause in humans?

After my conversation with Jeff, what I took away was there's perhaps a need for less speed or more careful thought around these trials.

And it was surprising again, to pick up on some of the themes that Robin had mentioned the previous week, that there are a lot of small trials registered, which might give us quite shaky or low quality evidence.

And it really got me thinking around how much we know about wasted research in a pandemic.

And it would be interesting for us to pick up on that theme, I think, and discuss that more next week.

I think the other interesting point was around whether the evidence that we are going to collect now, and assuming we do generate some high quality evidence, whether that realistically is going to be available to help us now in this pandemic, or whether that evidence is going to be better placed to inform future outbreaks of the condition.

Because I do think there's...

a kind of expectation amongst the public that some of these drugs being tested now are going to be very rapidly used in practice and will give us something we can do today.

Well, I would like to hear someone put that forward as a question for these daily briefings with the government.

Could we swap the lockdown for a total ban on the sale of cigarettes?

It would be interesting to know what the public thought of that.

Yeah, it was really some thinking around shielded people.

And care homes have been quite a bit in the news this week.

And one of the concerns that I hear from primary care around some of the logistical difficulties providing care for this very vulnerable group of people in residential care, or even in their own homes with heavy care packages and people going in.

And one thing that has bothered me is

the possibility that those people have COVID brought to them by the very people who are doing their best to care for them or provide them with healthcare.

So I was really interested to see this rapid review of the evidence for preventing spread of infectious diseases in care homes.

And we caught up with the author of that review, Mona, to hear about their key findings.