Ok, folks... let's get real about the potential for a vaccine for COVID-19. Even though lots of people have never heard of any coronavirus, there are lots of them.
We have been dealing with coronaviruses in humans and animals for 100s of years. In humans, they cause respiratory illnesses as minor as a cold to severe like the newly described COVID-19
In animals, they cause a variety of diseases including respiratory disease and intestinal diseases. In many cases, such as in infectious bronchitis virus of chickens, the virus causes high morbidity (lots of chickens get infected) and low mortality (only a few die).
Some intestinal viruses are the same but set the animal up for infectious from more serious pathogens. Some intestinal coronaviruses, like in pigs, cause very severe intestinal disease and can have both high morbidity and high mortality.
In cats, the horrible disease FIP is caused by a coronavirus. This virus has high mortality but morbidity is variable. There is still a lot we don't know about it.
Of all of these viruses....the only one we have a routine vaccine for is the virus of chickens and one of the viruses that affects pigs.
They work, and in the case of chickens, work only if you have a vaccine effective against the strain of virus that is causing the disease. You see, there are lots of strains within each species of virus...
Immunity to one strain does not mean immunity to the rest.
the virus changes all the time. They are RNA viruses and the enzyme that replicates their RNA isn't as good at making copies as the enzyme that replicates DNA in other viruses and in animals and plants.
These "typos" by the enzyme -RNA Dependent RNA polymerase, cause mutations that allows the virus to change rapidly and sometimes evade our vaccines and treatments.
For you cat lovers, that FIP virus is a huge scary disease that causes fatal disease in our kitties. People have been looking for a vaccine for decades. Still none.
For many of the pig viruses people have been looking for a vaccine for years....none
The good news is, some great researchers are very close to having a treatment for FIP available for use fairly soon. After years and years of work...so look out for that, cat owners! We vets are very excited!
Anyway, my point is, no matter how good the pharmaceutical industry or universities are, no matter how many tools they have, and how much money they have, there is NO guarantee that they will get a vaccine at all!
Certainly not in 3 days, or three months. Plus, they have to test it for safety!
When a vaccine for human respiratory syncytial virus (not a coronavirus) was developed, it was discovered that the vaccine could make the disease worse and babies died!
So..testing for safety and efficacy is very important.
Now there is always that someone will have a brainwave and solve all the problems with coronavirus vaccines while working on this new virus. That would be spectacular! That is what makes science fun....
But...the odds are against a quick fix and we should be prepared for that. And for goddess' sake...WASH YOUR HANDS
TLDR: Trump is an idiot.
(Yes I know this gif is for protein synthesis not genome replication but my choices were limited)
