I have full faith that before this virus claims millions of lives we will have a vaccine though. That's the thing, To give it time to claim millions of lives,, Which I admit, In third world countries, It may, even this year. But, People are doing their numbers all wrongly on this, They are estimating numbers without account for any defense, There are several defenses we will have,
Defense one, Some people on planet earth already have immunities built up against this, Yes they call it novel, But Those who have already recovered, do have some small amount of immunity. I question, Why we can't study those people who have recovered and attempt to get antibodies from those people?
Okay first of all, the empirical data right now shows that these "defenses" you're talking about are doing exactly jack shit to slow the spread of this virus in the US. Every 8 days the official number of infections has grown by a factor of 10, in a clear geometrical progression. Without a national lock-down, this will continue until the virus starts to run out of new people to infect, but by then the fate of millions of Americans will be sealed.
They're working on harvesting antibodies from recovered patients right now so they can start treating the infected, and it might help. But it's a very limited form of treatment, because the antibodies have to be harvested from patients who beat the virus, and you can only squeeze so much blood from a patient. Over the next few months as this virus ravages America, maybe we'll save 100 people that way. Maybe a thousand. Maybe even 10,000. But that's a mighty small percentage of the millions of people we're about to see hospitalized.
Defense two, We will eventually have a vaccine, So, Yes, doing the numbers in this way, By the time it can take millions of lives there will be a vaccine, Look at the numbers it's claimed so far, For it to claim millions of lives exponentially, It's going to take time, You speak truly when you say there is no cure for viruses, But there are vaccines. A vaccine will come in time, I promise.
No, this is a pipe dream. At the current rate of infection the entire country will have been exposed to this virus within the next 4-8 weeks. Eighteen years after the first SARS virus, we still don't have a vaccine for that one, and the two viruses are closely related. And even if we came up with a vaccine today, it takes 12-18 months just to conduct safety studies. Setting up manufacturing at the scale we need would take many months more:
"Overall, if all pieces fell into place, Hatchett guesses it would be 12 to 18 months before an initial product could be deemed safe and effective. That timeline represents “a vast acceleration compared with the history of vaccine development,” he told me. But it’s also unprecedentedly ambitious. “Even to propose such a timeline at this point must be regarded as hugely aspirational,” he added."
You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus
We may see a vaccine someday, but not until long after this virus has swept the globe.
Defense 3, Heard immunity, As more people recover and build immunity to this virus, They will not be active spreaders. The Virus won't always spread like wildfire. from person to person. A person who has good immunity to this, won't be contagious as long as others. eventually no matter how one slices it the spread will slow brother.
Again, this is no help right now, when the virus is spreading like wildfire totally unimpeded by any herd immunity. Herd immunity will help us battle future outbreaks of this virus (we hope - but there are concerns that the immunity to this one may be unusually short-lived), but it will play no significant role this year, which is the time frame of immediate concern.
This virus is fighting us. But We are fighting it, In a myriad of ways. The human immune system Will fight back. Eventually, This Coronavirus will be nothing more than serious flu.
It spreads like it does Because its novel, That won't be the case always and its spread will slow without question, without a doubt.
Yes, in a generation or two, this may be no more lethal to us than the seasonal flu. But that's no help now, when we need it.
People worry about it mutating, But it hasn't yet,
That's untrue, there are two strains already, known as the "L strain" and the "S strain." Virologists are concerned that this could hamper vaccine efforts. Also, the virus undergoes several mutations with every person it infects - this is how virologists use its genome to understand the spread. So far none of those random mutations have seemed to increase the lethality of the virus, but that could change at any moment - maybe tomorrow, maybe next century.
And if it doesn't then we will fully defeat this virus within five years.
If by "defeat" you mean "the virus will infect everyone on the planet within the next five years so outbreaks will be less common and less severe," then we agree.
I will grant you, In third world countries, This is going to be bad. Just as bad as you guys think, Yes.
I can't even pretend it won't be. It will.
The numbers already prove that the worst-case scenario is playing out here in the US, so our "first world" status is not protecting us, at all.
The flu is a coronavirus, The family you are thinking of is the Sars and MERS coronaviruses bro.
Nope. They all have a similar visual appearance (reminiscent of how different varieties of pollen look similar to one another) but influenza viruses belong to the family Orthomyxoviridae, and coronaviruses belong to the family Coronaviridae. So the influenza virus is not a coronavirus. Dr. Guido Vanham, a Belgian virologist, put it this way:
"It is a completely different virus from the Influenza viruses which belong to a very different group, meaning that flu vaccine or flu medication will not help. For now, we have no medication or vaccine for the virus. The genetic structure of this virus and a flu virus are as different as we are from dinosaurs."
A virology expert answers key questions on COVID-19
Here's what another virologist, Dr. Kurt Williamson, has to say about it:
"How do coronaviruses differ from, say, flu or cold viruses?
All three are what we would call RNA viruses (their genomes are made of RNA, not DNA) and all three are respiratory viruses. But all three are distinct in terms of their genetics, how the particles are put together and in the severity of disease that they can cause"
A coronavirus Q&A with a virologist | William & Mary
Here's a breakdown of viral taxonomy:
https://watermark.silverchair.com/2...jXdVJ7MnBVfrqtVkWZxsECmxrAzxq3m_5T4OE5FTuYjgf