A promising new quasi-vaccine technology is to use anti-bodies from recovering covid-19 patients to provide vaccine-like protection. This technology is entering clinical trials. Effective supply is quite limited due to the need to acquire plasma from recovering patients: how to increase availabitity of COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) and how best to allocate it is studied by Scott Kominers, Parag Pathak, Tayfun Sönmez, and Utku Ünver. This research is a fusion of medical science and social science and illustrates the benefits of collaboration.
The researchers’ proposed incentive based scheme to increase access to CCP therapy has had remarkable impact latey, as the US-based Covid Plasma Initiave decided to adopt the scheme.