# How do we know there will ever be a vaccine, or a treatment? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [April 10, 2020, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529 "2020-04-10T21:56:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/1 "2020-04-10T21:56:52Z")
As I understand it - the common cold is caused by a variety of different viruses, which includes other coronaviruses. There is no vaccine or effective treatment for the common cold, and no real “herd immunity” effect either because these viruses mutate too fast and change every season. The latter is true for influenza as well, although we do have a marginally effective vaccine for it. This vaccine merely moderates the seasonal influenza and hasn’t eradicated it. So what evidence is there to suggest we will _ever_ have a vaccine or treatment for SARS-CoV-2? ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/2 "2020-04-10T23:23:52Z")
Well, right now even a “marginally effective” vaccine that keeps people from bloody dying would be a pretty big step up, I reckon. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/3 "2020-04-10T23:35:41Z")
We don’t. However expert opinion thinks there is a very good chance there will be. For example there are positive results in mice from one candidate (and lots of groups are working on different proposals): > [@](#): > > Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine announced today that they have developed a promising new COVID–19 vaccine candidate… > > “We had previous experience on SARS-CoV in 2003 and MERS-CoV in 2014,” said Andrea Gambotto, co-senior author of the peer-reviewed paper published in the journal EBioMedicine, and associate professor of surgery at the Pittsburgh School of Medicine, in a statement. > > “These two viruses, which are closely related to SARS-CoV–2, teach us that a particular protein, called a spike protein, is important for inducing immunity against the virus,” Gambotto explained. “We knew exactly where to fight this new virus.” > > The vaccine dubbed “PittCoVacc” (Pittsburgh Coronavirus Vaccine) works in the same basic way as a flu shot: By injecting lab-made pieces of viral protein into the body to help it build an immunity. > > When tested in mice, the researchers found that the number of antibodies capable of neutralizing the deadly SARS-CoV–2 virus surged two weeks after delivery. > **[First Peer-Reviewed Coronavirus Vaccine Trial Shows Promising Results in Mice](https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-in-pittsburgh-say-they-ve-already-developed-a-covid-19-vaccine-candidate)** > > Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine announced today that they have developed a promising new COVID–19 vaccine candidate. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/4 "2020-04-10T23:44:30Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > There is no vaccine or effective treatment for the common cold, and no real “herd immunity” effect either because these viruses mutate too fast and change every season. The latter is true for influenza as well, although we do have a marginally effective vaccine for it. This vaccine merely moderates the seasonal influenza and hasn’t eradicated it. [Coronavirus seems to mutate much less rapidly than seasonal flu,](https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-mutation-rate.html) suggesting that a vaccine might be effective for longer. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/5 "2020-04-10T23:45:03Z")
None of them might work out. There might never be an effective treatment or vaccine. The evidence that a vaccine or treatment will work is the research and study that goes into developing it. Experts will go in directions they think are promising, and will adjust as more evidence is available. There can’t be any evidence until the research is done. SARS classic spawned lots of research, but funding dried up as time passed from the initial threat. There was lots of promising work on vaccines for SARS, which was shelved years ago. If even one of those vaccines had been followed through to production, it would be a tremendous help now. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/6 "2020-04-10T23:48:49Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > There is no vaccine or effective treatment for the common cold Could we develop a vaccine for one particular strain of the common cold, if the demand and the urgency were high enough? That seems to me to be the appropriate comparison. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/7 "2020-04-11T00:10:03Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > SARS classic spawned lots of research, but funding dried up as time passed from the initial threat. There was lots of promising work on vaccines for SARS, which was shelved years ago. If even one of those vaccines had been followed through to production, it would be a tremendous help now. I don’t think it was just funding. The only ethical way to test a vaccine is to give it to some people who are at risk of infection, and see if they get infected at a lower rate than the control group. You can’t do that if there isn’t an ongoing outbreak. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/8 "2020-04-11T01:16:23Z")
Two words: We don’t. ---
**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/9 "2020-04-11T03:36:40Z")
Will you guys please hush? The only way I’ve been able to keep my at risk spouse and his even older mother to stay at home is to lie to them. “Yes, its only going to be a couple of weeks, lets Skype and watch Netflix together.” And then “It looks like its worse than we thought, but it will be over by the end of the month. Lets Skype and watch Netflix together.” I have brought up my opinion that this won’t be over for a year at least (18 months, but I didn’t tell them that). I became very unpopular. If there will never be a vaccine, I will lose both of them shortly after they figure it out because they won’t see any reason to stay confined until they die. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/10 "2020-04-11T04:12:37Z")
This isn’t your average health emergency. Much more effort is going into solving the problem. the US started human testing of a vaccine last month and there are certainly other countries testing their own version or will be testing one soon. We don’t necessarily need a vaccine if we have a drug regiment that works so it’s not going to be a combination of medical advances that keep things in check. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/11 "2020-04-11T07:45:08Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > I don’t think it was just funding. The only ethical way to test a vaccine is to give it to some people who are at risk of infection, and see if they get infected at a lower rate than the control group. You can’t do that if there isn’t an ongoing outbreak. I just read an interview with a Dutch researcher who spent a long time working on a different Corona virus and has now switched to Sars-Cov-2. She said this about SARS. Just as scr4 says: once they had something to test, there was nobody to test it on. She said we don’t have a cold vaccine because we don’t need one and nobody is funding it because we don’t need it (in addition to there being many viruses). So short answer: we don’t have a cold virus vaccine because we never needed one before. She also thought we’d get to a cure before we find a vaccine, IIRC. I think it was in Parool, I’ll try to find the interview but it’ll be in Dutch, of course. Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/12 "2020-04-11T08:27:46Z")
“The Common Cold” is caused by a lot of things, some of which are coronaviruses, but most of which are rhinoviruses. According to a doctor of my acquaintance, you actually do become immune to some of them after you have them, and to other for a period of time, but there are so many, and they are indistinguishable symptomatically, that you can’t know that you had one coronavirus last year which you will never get again. And two-year immunity is certainly something. Look how rabies cases went to near-zero with a vaccine for domestic animals that confers immunity for a few years, and which we repeat every few years. So we get a Covid-19 vaccine that has to be repeated every two or three years. I’d get it. I’d get it for my son. And, actually, a vet I had in the last city where I lived told me that many animals who lived to be elderly were found to have immunity to rabies that seemed to be permanent. Since it’s not legal not to vaccinate them, they have information only from the occasional necropsy on an old pet whose owner neglected vaccines after attending to them for years-- which happens-- if the animal gets arthritis, and is hard to get into the car, vet appointments fall off. Or if the animal gets cancer, some owners stop vaccinating. But some animals will live for five or six years with a slow-growing cancer (we had a dog like this, but we did vaccinate her; she was a big dog who lived to 15 & 1/2). So a vaccine that must be repeated every year, or two years for 20 years, and then stopped, is possible. If you are 65, that could mean the rest of your life, but if you are 4, that means until the end of grad school. If you are a baby, it means until two years after high school-- a year before you can even legally drink. Really, all bets are off. Something that isn’t well known, is that while Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine, and Paul Offit developed the current rotavirus vaccine, nearly every other childhood vaccine was developed by one person, a guy named Maurice Hilleman. So they are all similar in administration, and the way they work. That’s how he made vaccines. They were all developed during his active years, so with relatively similar technology, too. But vaccines don’t have to work the way we are familiar with. Actually, Hilleman did vary his methods, in that when he couldn’t get immunity to a killed virus, he would try an attenuated virus, then just the protein coating on a virus, when it had one. He did evolve, but he still was mostly one guy, working with some grad student assistants, but really sort of a cowboy. He actually made the mumps vaccine from a swab he took one evening from his daughter’s throat when she came down with the illness. However, treatments can go in all sorts of directions. Hilleman saw a virus, and thought to make people immune with the virus itself, by disabling it some way. And that’s how most lay people think when they think about a Covid-19 vaccine. But really, there may be some as-yet-unimagined way to fight it that will come up as the virus is studied. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/13 "2020-04-11T11:09:26Z")
I think we should work on the assumption that one won’t be found, at least not a vaccine that lets us all go back to normal. Rather impossible for anyone here to evaluate just how promising all this promising research is but virus vaccines aren’t exactly easy. People have got to quit saying “this won’t be over til there’s a vaccine” because it isn’t remotely guaranteed to happen. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/14 "2020-04-11T15:40:42Z")
Cite? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/15 "2020-04-11T16:48:32Z")
For what? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/16 "2020-04-11T16:59:32Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Could we develop a vaccine for one particular strain of the common cold, if the demand and the urgency were high enough? That seems to me to be the appropriate comparison. Yes, but as you hint, developing a vaccine for the cold is difficult because there’s not really a specific disease to develop a vaccine for; there are hundreds. They happen to have broadly similar symptoms, but you can’t even be sure what KIND of virus you’re dealing with. Most colds, they believe, are rhinoviruses, of which there are scores, maybe hundreds. Many colds will be coronaviruses, or adenoviruses. In fact, it is almost certain that at some point in your life you’ve had at least one “cold” that was actually influenza, but it was just a mild case, so you thought of it as a “cold” - “cold” really just means “an infection that’s mostly in my sinuses, but maybe in related areas, and the doctor says antibiotics won’t work because it’s not bacterial, and it’s not going to kill me but it sucks.” Indeed, it is quite possible for SARS-CoV-2 to give you a cold. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/17 "2020-04-11T17:23:15Z")
As was mentioned, a vaccine shouldn’t be an issue because the coronavirus doesn’t mutate very rapidly. So the antigens on its surface should be stable enouhg for a vaccine. Treatments however would be nice if we figure one out, but who knows how long it would take them to pass through clinical testing. Hopefully we will find a drug that already has FDA approval for some other condition that helps prevent the worst of this disease (malaria drugs, HIV drugs, etc) so we can reduce the rates of serious complications and cut back on the quarantines. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/18 "2020-04-11T17:27:05Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > I think we should work on the assumption that one won’t be found, at least not a vaccine that lets us all go back to normal. Rather impossible for anyone here to evaluate just how promising all this promising research is but virus vaccines aren’t exactly easy. People have got to quit saying “this won’t be over til there’s a vaccine” because it isn’t remotely guaranteed to happen. Luckily, there’s little reason for your pessimism. Dr. John Mascola, Director of the Vaccine Research Center at the NIH, [explains](https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/how-close-are-we-to-a-covid-19-vaccine/)that the reason a COVID-19 vaccine is in Phase I clinical trials only 65 days after its initial development is that researchers had already been working on SARS and MERS vaccines and had been thinking another coronavirus could occur. In other words, they had a head start. And there are multiple COVID-19 vaccines in the works. Of course it’s impossible for anyone here to evaluate how promising these potential vaccines are. That’s why we have experts. Dr. Mascola says he’s “pretty confident” an effective COVID-19 vaccine will be available. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/19 "2020-04-11T21:56:24Z")
OP: We don’t. > [@CarnalK](#): > > I think we should work on the assumption that one won’t be found… That would be prudent. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. It’s not hard, just tedious. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > As was mentioned, a vaccine shouldn’t be an issue because the coronavirus doesn’t mutate very rapidly. Not as fast as flu virii, but it still happens. [(cite)](https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-mutation-rate.html) > [@](#): > > Based on current data, it seems as though SARS-CoV-2 mutates much more slowly than the seasonal flu. Specifically, SARS-CoV-2 seems to have a mutation rate of less than 25 mutations per year, whereas the seasonal flu has a mutation rate of almost 50 mutations per year. > > Given that the SARS-CoV-2 genome is almost twice as large as the seasonal flu genome, it seems as though the seasonal flu mutates roughly four times as fast as SARS-CoV-2. The fact that the seasonal flu mutates so quickly is precisely why it is able to evade our vaccines, so the significantly slower mutation rate of SARS-CoV-2 gives us hope for the potential development of effective long-lasting vaccines against the virus. “Hope for potential development”. If they were selling stock on that basis, I’d demur. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529/20 "2020-04-12T14:59:23Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Luckily, there’s little reason for your pessimism. Dr. John Mascola, Director of the Vaccine Research Center at the NIH, [explains](https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/how-close-are-we-to-a-covid-19-vaccine/)that the reason a COVID-19 vaccine is in Phase I clinical trials only 65 days after its initial development is that researchers had already been working on SARS and MERS vaccines and had been thinking another coronavirus could occur. In other words, they had a head start. And there are multiple COVID-19 vaccines in the works. I’ve heard experts predict the future of research plenty of times. If they could predict it that easy, we wouldn’t need research. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-know-there-will-ever-be-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment/851529.md?page=2)