Just a point for those who are waiting for a vaccine - there are a TON of potential potholes between here and an available safe vaccine:
(And I’m pro vaccines, this is not an anti-vaxxer stance)
CoVID is caused by a coronavirus. These are what are called positive sense single strand RNA viruses (+ssRNA). We have not brought a coronavirus vaccine for humans to completion before. And we haven’t been very successful with vaccines against other +ssRNA viruses that are not coronaviruses (cousins to the coronaviruses, let’s say). The obstacles that we have encountered in making vaccines against those “cousins” may well turn out to apply to CoVID too.
1)RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) - leading pneumonia killer of infants. We have been trying to make a successful vaccine for 50 years. We thought we had one 30 years ago but it caused immune enhancement - a condition where you get the vaccine, then when you get the virus you actually get SICKER than if you had no vaccine.
2) Dengue Fever - usually the second time you get dengue fever you get WAY sicker than the first. A while back we came up with a dengue vaccine and it was used extensively in the Philippines. Unfortunately, immune enhancement was also a problem with this vaccine and people who had never had dengue, had the vaccine, and then got dengue, got very ill as if it was their second case of dengue, not first. That vaccine is now only approved for people who have already had dengue once.
3) SARS - the same problem cropped up during attempts to make a SARS vaccine .
4) FIPV - a coronavirus of cats, attempts to make this vaccine were slowed by problems with either not generating immunity, or immune enhancement that led to death.
So researchers will have to overcome this big obstacle in order to have a safe CoVID vaccine.
Also - some of the most promising approaches for rapid development and production of a CoVID vaccine lie in RNA and DNA vaccine technology. We don’t really have much experience with getting these vaccines to work in humans.
Then - assuming EVERYTHING goes right, they manage to skirt immune enhancement problems, and can manufacture boatloads if vaccine - imagine the logistical problems of vaccinating the entire country/world? Shortages of needles and syringes are already being predicted.
Then one final problem - cold-type coronaviruses only generate immunity that lasts just a year or two. A CoVID vaccine may need to be repeated every year or two. And the mutation rate of this virus appears to be higher than first thought, so it may need to be changed yearly like flu vaccine.
Given all these technical problems, I’m not holding my breath (have you noticed we don’t have an AIDS vaccine yet?). I think we are much more likely to come up with preventive and outpatient treatment regimens that will make this pandemic more manageable and that will be the thing that helps. Based on recent data, just getting everybody’s vitamin D levels into the normal range might cut way down on severity of disease.