Need for guidelines like GCP, ethical guidelines arose whn it was observed that
the rights, health and well-being of participants was taken for granted specially during disasters like second world war. In rush to collapse covid pandemic, several clinical trials are initiated. it is matter of grave concern if guidelines for approval, conduction and regulation are being abided strictly in this situation.
Most of the ethical guidelines are being followed but depending on the results changes might happen during a trial. For example, a study that was testing a specific drug calculated it needed to recruit about 1,000 participants, but the number of patients diminished and they had to end early their trial. Another one found improvement of one drug and ethically they had to switch the participants to use that drug before arriving at their target recruitment count.
Ultimately, one's view on the matter will be molded by one's degree of tolerance to conventional/methodological deviation (which, in this case, would refer to the standard processes of developing, drugs, vaccines and other interventions during times of peace or non-emergency). There will be some people who will assume right away that deviations by themselves, significant or otherwise, from these established proper/conventional guidelines would be tantamount to ethical violations, while some will be more nuanced in deciding on the matter.
With that being said, at this point in time, there are already established/followed guidelines for research in general specifically during periods of global, regional, or national emergencies with obvious differences with corresponding procedures observed in peace or non-emergency. One example of these conditional procedures is the so-called animal rule or the animal efficacy rule of the US Food and Drug Administration. This rule stipulates that, in certain situations of emergent character, data from animal studies are enough to provide evidence of efficacy/effectiveness. Methodologically-speaking, this rule deviates hard from the the process that we're used to, wherein pre-clinical studies are performed in increasingly sophisticated non-whole-human entities before the investigational product gets tested in healthy volunteers (Phase I) and in Phases succeeding this.
I recommend this reference for further reading: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK368388/
We follow the same rules and processes for clinical research. Only the delays are reduced.
Regulatory Authorities have issued several guidance documents specifically for conducting existing clinical studies during the COVID-19 pandemic and also for conducting COVID-19 specific studies.
"FDA Guidance on Conduct of Clinical Trials of Medical Products during COVID-19 Public Health Emergency - updated 11-May-2020" is a good starting point: https://www.fda.gov/media/136238/download, as is the EMA "Guidance on the Management of Clinical Trials during the COVID-19 (CORONAVIRUS) Pandemic Version 3 28/04/2020 " https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/files/eudralex/vol-10/guidanceclinicaltrials_covid19_en.pdf
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