The in vitro testing had already been done before those two days; they had the basic structure of the vaccine known, so once they had a virus sample they could fill in the blank (the spike protein of this particular virus rather than another in its ‘family’) with high confidence that it would work. One of the two days, IIUC, was spent synthesizing a sample vaccine and running some very-short-term tests.
This, again, has only simulation to support that it’s hitting the correct target at all. There is no indication that any of that has been done, by the authors or anyone else; IIUC there is not a clear path for doing short-term tests for this type of vaccine.
Also, it’s not my background knowledge that you should be comparing to, it’s Sarah’s. And I literally believe there is no one in the world who can be more trusted to reason clearly, well-informedly, correctly, and with humility and arrogance in their respective correct places than Sarah Constantin. Evaluating biomedical research has been her job for many years, with some gaps, and she’s really good at rationality, Aumann-level good. The bare fact that Sarah C thinks this is very unlikely to work is conclusive on its own.
The in vitro testing had already been done before those two days; they had the basic structure of the vaccine known, so once they had a virus sample they could fill in the blank (the spike protein of this particular virus rather than another in its ‘family’) with high confidence that it would work. One of the two days, IIUC, was spent synthesizing a sample vaccine and running some very-short-term tests.
This, again, has only simulation to support that it’s hitting the correct target at all. There is no indication that any of that has been done, by the authors or anyone else; IIUC there is not a clear path for doing short-term tests for this type of vaccine.
Also, it’s not my background knowledge that you should be comparing to, it’s Sarah’s. And I literally believe there is no one in the world who can be more trusted to reason clearly, well-informedly, correctly, and with humility and arrogance in their respective correct places than Sarah Constantin. Evaluating biomedical research has been her job for many years, with some gaps, and she’s really good at rationality, Aumann-level good. The bare fact that Sarah C thinks this is very unlikely to work is conclusive on its own.