Vaccine AND medicine

[matrixmann]

A critical question that slowly but surely comes to mind the longer this pandemic persists all around the globe:

Why the heck are all making the biggest fuss about acquiring a vaccine against the disease?

Arguing with the facts, no country in the world has either a reliable vaccine, nor a med or a reliable treatment against Covid-19 (the vaccine that Russia claimed weeks ago will still have to be prove if it works).
So that makes two construction sites with nothing to start with, all has to be achieved from scratch.

So why furiously betting everything on just a vaccine?

If the current studying of antibody production after an infection solidifies, it might also be there is no lasting immunity to the virus because it keeps changing steadily, like all cold and flu viruses do.
Better it would be to try to achieve both.

So... why do all desperate hopes for “getting the old way of life back” just look up to this pathway?
Is it the money which has already been invested into it?
Is it a possibly shorter development period?
Or do the investors look up to better financial gains through a vaccine than through a med?

I mean... from the point of pragmatism, there are obviously two things that nobody has - and which are deeply desired.
So let’s try to get both things.

Every handbook of basic strategy tells you that it’s always better to have more than one leg to stand on.
Don’t base everything on just one thing because you’ll be fucked if just that one thing breaks or fails.
And we’re talking about millions and billions of human lives here, not just about a mere statistic in a simulation that isn’t real.

Comments

[m_d_h]

Well, in general developing a new treatment for a new disease from scratch takes a decade or more. The HIV virus was identified in 1983, but effective treatments weren't available until 1997. People expected there would be a vaccine for HIV before the 1980s were over, but HIV has proven remarkably resistant to vaccination efforts.

So a vaccine would be the faster way out of this mess, if we can generate a safe and effective one.

There's been a lot of hope that a pre-existing drug would turn out to be effective against COVID-19, but so far only a few drugs are helpful at all and they aren't increasing survival by 100%, more like increasing survival by 1/3?

At this point I'm hoping one of the several vaccine candidates in Stage III trials will turn out to be safe and effective, and then it will just be a matter of manufacturing and distributing enough doses to everybody by the end of next year.

[matrixmann]

Hm, okay, that's a reason if the research on it is in fact quicker than developing a treatment.

As far as things progress, I still remain sceptic even though if it won't be like with HIV - just as you say, the expectations about an effective vaccine were "before the 1980s are over", and still they don't have it.

The further manking progresses in its development, the more complicated the diseases it can become subject to seem to become...

[onb2017.livejournal.com]

Looks like you were right last weekend: you posted a lot! I will try to read it but not quite familiar with the other topics so won't comment. This one though, actually it's a good point. I wonder too how the vaccine for a virus can solve anything? Usually the bacterial infections can be battled this way but the viral? So yeah, looks like there is some agenda behind it rather that a cure.

[matrixmann]

I've wondered myself of being so active - literally having something to say every day (and I shifted posts at least to a next day, so they don't get 3 on one day and then 4 days of radio silence...)...

As far as I can figure it, I guess they cling to that stick in order to get their previous state, society and economical order back as soon as possible.
Vaccine seems like the way that could work quicker than a med.

Although, I feel like that's accepting a pretty high risk...
You know, only time will tell if the vaccine really works or if, how long it will be. If it'll be half a year or a year or just only 2 months and work too ineffectively to even distribute it...

At the moment, I think it's just religious hoping.
Like hoping for God to take their burdens away.