I was thinking it was a way to try and compare apples to apples to quickly identify a treatment that works early in the disease. The trial design seemed arbitrary at first but really the treatment for those early in the disease is different because they want to stop the disease progression. If a drug candidate is only helpful with the end stage then it really doesn’t do much to free up the ICU beds and end the pandemic. By having all candidates go through this standardized trial you can compare them and quickly identify what works best in the early window of opportunity. Hey but what do I know, someone at FDA could have just threw a dart at a calendar. Great question and I look forward to a real answer.

Effmaxjimbernonleordunnmaxsmith!