
Ask HN: Why are people certain a vaccine with be found for Coronavirus? - champagnepapi
I am pretty ignorant on the topic, so please go light. I&#x27;m asking because there are viruses such as HIV that still have no vaccine, so why are people so sure that they will find&#x2F;create one for Corona anytime soon?
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jjk166
Significant progress was made towards vaccines for other diseases closely
related to Coronavirus such as SARS and MERS before funding dried up. While a
SARS vaccine probably wouldn't be effective against Covid-19, there's no
reason a priori to assume covid-19 has some special quality that makes it
substantially more difficult to develop a vaccine for.

HIV resists attempts to produce a vaccine because of its high mutation rate.
There are too many strains out there for one vaccine to ever be effective and
no guarantee that new strains won't pop up. Had HIV been caught and contained
early on, a vaccine cocktail could probably have been developed that would be
effective, but now you'd still have to worry about any HIV positive person
having a strain you are not vaccinated against and thus would have to take the
same protective measures.

Covid-19 has been mutating slowly thus far, so there is good reason to believe
that if a vaccine is developed, it would be effective. It is possible and even
probable that covid will remain endemic in some regions, particularly those
with poor healthcare systems, and thus new strains will have time to emerge.
We thus may need new vaccines for seasonal strains, similar to the flu, but
still it will be much more manageable.

At the end of the day though, a vaccine may not be necessary for life to go
back to something close to normal. The US already has about 1.3 million
community spread pneumonia cases per year on average which has a substantially
higher mortality rate and we get along just fine. The issue with Covid was
that we were unprepared for it - hospitals did not have adequate amounts of
supplies and equipment to handle the sudden spike in admitted patients. This
leads to worse outcomes for those who catch the disease and extreme measures
to limit the rate the disease spreads. If all the hospitals already had tons
of extra ventilators lying around and if everyone already had face masks at
home and if businesses already had adequate plans for sick leave in place then
this outbreak would have been a mild inconvenience. While we obviously can't
go back in time, we will be prepared moving forward.

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lurquer
>The issue with Covid was that we were unprepared for it - hospitals did not
have adequate amounts of supplies and equipment to handle the sudden spike in
admitted patients.

What hospitals are you referring to?

Are you aware of any patients in the US that have been denied hospital beds,
ventilators, etc.?

There seems to be a confusion between the anticipated crisis, and the reality
on the ground. Even in NYC, I'm not aware of any hospital system needing to
turn patients covid patients away.

~~~
twox2
You're living under a rock. Folks have been turned away from the hospital and
told to come back when they're dying.

~~~
lurquer
I'm not living under a rock. I'm actually living a mile or two from a
virtually empty hospital. The post I was responding to implied hospitals were
overwhelmed. I simply asked which ones. Specically. Name them. If you don't
know, fine. But, responding with downvotes snd insults doesn't seem
productive.

Two weeks ago, we (by 'we' I mean the 320 million+ who don't live in NYC) were
told by Cuomo that hospitals would be overrun and 40,000+ ventilators would be
needed. Thankfully, that wasn't true. Was it?

~~~
twox2
Living 2 miles away from a virtually empty hospital in the middle of nowhere =
living under a rock. Here where there's a dense population, every hospital IS
overrun and if they are not past capacity, it's literally because they turn
you away unless you need severe intervention like intubation.

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Kaze404
Expanding on your question, will it even matter immediately if they do? If one
was found today, how long would it take for it to be available to everyone?

~~~
s1t5
The time scale is from several months to over a year. It takes a while to
answer questions like - does it provide immunity, is it safe, what doses
provide immunity and are safe, is one innoculation enough or does it need to
be repeated, how long does the immunity last and so on. When you come across
headlines about institutions which have began vaccine trials (there have been
a few), that means that they are in the early stages of answering these
questions. Then you have questions of production and distribution which can
vary a lot depending on the type of vaccine that's produced.

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sigmaprimus
I don't think anyone is that sure there will be a vaccine but there is some
promising work being done, I believe there are around 70 different vaccines
being developed ATM.

One that looks like it may work is from an Israeli group working on a milder
corona virus that seems to use the same spiked protiens as the one killing
everyone and there is hope that once infected with milder one, the bodies
immune system will be able to fight off the deadlier one too.

I makes me wonder, scary as it is, that is if the milder virus can make us
immune would it be worth the risk releasing a live version into the
population? This would greatly reduce the time required to produce and
distribute a life saving vaccine and effectively make it free for everyone.

~~~
bibabaloo
How do you spread it without also spreading the stronger virus?

~~~
sigmaprimus
Good point! Although, we really haven't stopped the spread of the stronger
one, bending the curve is just slowing it down. Maybe the milder one could be
spread faster if it were intentional?

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blaser-waffle
Not discussing it's possibility with the public -- "there is no cure!!" \--
would cause a panic. There is no situation where "we're not working on
vaccine" will sell well with anyone anywhere.

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mb_72
There is an informative and balanced take on this on the ABC News (Australia)
site:

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-04-17/coronavirus-
va...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-04-17/coronavirus-vaccine-ian-
frazer/12146616)

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2rsf
Partial answer- because Corona is not new and some work has already began a
while ago.

For example this [1] Israeli company

> MIGAL initiated its Corona-vaccine development program four years ago with
> $4 million funding by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture.

Although it was originally for chickens...

[1]
[http://www.migal.org.il/en/node/7010](http://www.migal.org.il/en/node/7010)

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LoSpietato
Billionaires are very preoccupied in saving the rest 99% dreamers but before
the vaccine come out show me the money.

It seems a negotiation between drug dealers in dirt dark alley.

~~~
sigmaprimus
I think the argument you are making has some truth to it. It is a common
belief that drug companies are more interested in developing treatments than
cures as there is far more profit in treatment.

