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I've read the study:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.24.20042937v1

showing that the BCG vaccination status may influence the susceptibility to covid-19 in a population. It also hints at the possibility of further studies which can be done in order to better understand the phenomenon (for example in the USA one can found a lot of people having different vaccination status living with the same standard of general health care). Can someone translate in layman terms if preventive BCG vaccination against covid-19 is close to be recommendable or there is still a lot to be done before recommending.

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It's just a medical hypothesis that because BCG might offer some protection against viruses and bacterial infection, it might offer some protection against SARS-CoV-2.

There is an Australian study in progress to see if it helps protect health workers.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04327206

But given that BCG has been in world wide short supply for some years now one wonders about the practicality of the study. Its main use is in bladder cancer.

Due to problems with vaccine production and limited supplier options in some countries, the global availability and procurement of BCG has been a challenge since 2013

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(18)30474-1/fulltext

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    Can you please clarify why even if BCG is in short supply it wouldn't be faster and cheaper to restart BCG production (being an already studied vaccine) and use it until a better new vaccine is ready for use? – yoneru Apr 5 '20 at 7:54
  • It's been in short supply for years, and they haven't been able to fix the supply despite demand. And it's just a hypothesis. – Graham Chiu Apr 5 '20 at 19:48

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