For example, an experimental vaccine isn't given out widely till there is good data that it is safe (often taking years).
However, for risky diseases (like COVID), as soon as there are even rough indications that it is safer than COVID, it makes sense to give it to everyone. Every month you spend doing more safety tests, millions of people die.
The same is happening right now for malaria treatments which are being trialled. Skipping the trial and handing it out untested will probably save more lives.
How is this an example of “the wrong stats being used to make decisions”? You believe that undergoing safety trials with control groups is a bad thing because they take time?
> However, for risky diseases (like COVID), as soon as there are even rough indications that it is safer than COVID, it makes sense to give it to everyone.
What if we find out several years down the road that the vaccine is causing a drop in IQ, affecting birth rates, etc.? Wouldn’t it have been nice to catch these things during the safety trials before injecting it into billions of people?
You can always do more trials and more studies, but at some point the cost of delays outweighs the risks. A blanket "this is the degree of safety testing needed" for every single intervention makes no sense if the cost of that testing differs significantly — and when you have a rapidly spreading disease killing millions of people, the cost of delays is much higher than it would be if you're trying to cure the common cold.
No testing at all would be a really bad idea, but "we'll spend just as long testing this one as this as we would on a common cold vaccine" is also a really bad idea.
I'd also drive faster if I were rushing to the hospital with a dying friend, even though speeding is risky. You have to weigh risks and benefits and do what has the best expected outcome.
What if we find out several years down the road that COVID-19 does these things? We have a better grasp on the potential side effects of the vaccine—which, after all, is much simpler than a virus—than we have on the potential side effects of the disease.
Covid is a relatively known relatively high risk which has killed millions and left tens of millions injured.
A vaccine may cause problems. Possibly. Or it could also not cause problems.
So far there is no evidence to suggest that problems are particularly likely, or that they have been happening at all at significant risk levels.
The rational decision - clearly - is to deal with a severe immediate threat. Not to worry about something that shows no signs of happening because what if maybe perhaps could happen y'know.