https://theweek.com/articles/906397/race-coronavirus-vaccine
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/04/what-coronavirus-drug-will-look-like/609661/
Note also that vaccines do NOT help you recover from a virus infection. By their nature (simulating an infection), to be effective, they are given in advance of a virus to teach the body what to do when presented with the real virus. The only 'cure' for most viruses is to help the body's own immune system do its job. Ebola is one exception: https://www.wired.com/story/ebola-is-now-curable-heres-how-the-new-treatments-work/
One question I've always wondered about viruses is that once you get over a virus, is it gone out of the body? For flus and most acute viral infections, when you're over it, they're gone out of the body. There are exceptions, such as shingles (herpes zoster) See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingles
There are other viruses that become latent in the body, which you can read about here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3142679/
There are several reasons for our unprecedented response of basically shutting down the country...
1) COVID-19 is a new virus and so no human has any immunity from this virus. With flu viruses that go around every year, a high proportion of people have already developed immunity because of previous infection. This is what's called herd immunity when at least 85%-90% of the whole population is immune. The consequence of herd immunity is that the disease spreads more slowly because most people are already immune to infection which prevents the virus from infecting and reproducing in them, and then spreading to others. With COVID-19, nobody has immunity, so everybody is a potential host, and the number of infections explodes exponentially.
2) The virus is very contagious. Speaking releases a cloud of viruses for nearby people to catch. And none of them have any immunity so they are all fertile ground.
3) Different viruses have different lag times (latency) between the time of initial infection and the appearance of symptoms, which can range from a day or two to several weeks. Current estimates are that COVID-19 symptoms appear sometime between about 4 days and two weeks after infection. It's not yet known just when the virus is most contagious, so we have to assume that we may have been exposed without knowing it, as in many cases, and so take the distancing and hygiene precautions we all know about. Failure to do that will allow the virus to keep on spreading, to the detriment of us all. And during that two weeks, if you are out and about, you could infect many other people, all of whom can then infect just as many other people. The infection rates can explode.
4) An unknown proportion of people will become infected and never develop any symptoms of illness. Some of these people may become carriers of the virus, and can spread it to others if they go out and about without taking the precautions we've all been told to follow. This is why the CDC is now asking all of us to wear masks, to prevent any viruses we're unsuspectedly carrying from infecting others people (as noted in #3).
5) In some people, the flu virus causes their immune system to over-react dramatically, lose control of its proper function of protecting the body and actually begin attacking vital organs, causing organ failure (liver, kidneys, lungs, etc.). This isn't a direct effect of COVID-19 itself, but is due to the body's exaggerated response, which was also seen in the 1918 flu pandemic. It's a little like the common autoimmune diseases we know (e.g. lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes) but much more severe.
6) Because almost none of us yet have any immunity to COVID-19, the people that are already suffering from other health stresses may not be able to tolerate the additional stress of this (or any) infection. This will put them in the hospital and could kill them. Also, the overwhelming burden of caring for COVID-19 patients means that the resources (e.g. ventilators and beds) that are already needed and in use to treat patients with other illnesses won't be available.
7) Because of the rapid spread of this virus, the large number of people who do need medical care can quickly overwhelm the hospitals. And the staff must wear clumsy, uncomfortable bio-hazard gear (PPE or Personal Protective Equipment) to protect themselves so they can continue to care for patients and not get sick themselves. There have already been many reports of medical personnel being infected, with a significant number of deaths, including the Wuhan doctor who first identified the outbreak.
8) When the hospitals are overwhelmed and run out of ventilators, beds, medications, IV fluids, etc. some tough choices will need to be made. Let's say you're in charge of admissions. You have 1000 beds in your hospital, you have 100 beds available, and you have 2000 people who will die if they are not admitted to your hospital right now. This will be the "death panel" scenario the right-wing is always screaming about, but now they're real, a result of our fragmented, disorganized, technology-focused, for-profit 'health care system' that makes medical care unavailable or unaffordable for a high percentage of the population. The profit motive should not be a factor when dealing with systems which kill people when they fail or they can't afford to pay.
In the long run, it's likely we will all be infected with the virus, just like the flu, which is why some people have advocated for not intervening and letting COVID-19 run its course. But this would be catastrophic socially and economically. The goal of this massive intervention in our behavior is to slow the infection rate, so those sent to the hospital can be taken care of. This is called 'flattening the curve' which I'm sure you all have heard about.
My speculation is that after we get over the initial season, subsequent seasons may not be as devastating as this one, because there is some evidence that a significant proportion of people may have been infected, with mild or no symptoms. If that is the case, they will be immune to future infection, creating enough herd immunity to prevent the rapid spread that we're seeing this year when no one is immune.
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