What if there is no Vaccine?

America Needs To Win The Coronavirus Vaccine Race

The first nation to develop a vaccine for Covid-19 could have an economic advantage as well as a tremendous public-health achievement. Doses will be limited initially as suppliers ramp up, and a country will focus on inoculating most of its own population first. Even with extraordinary international collaboration among multiple companies, it could be years before a vaccine is produced at a scale sufficient to help the entire world. The first country to the finish line will be first to restore its economy and global influence. America risks being second.

 

While friendly nations will try to share a successful product—to a point—the U.S. can’t rely on vaccines from China or even Europe being available in America quickly. So it’s important to take steps to speed up progress in the U.S., and to prepare to manufacture such a vaccine on a global scale. A more prepared U.S. could inoculate Americans quickly and share the product with others, particularly low-income nations that can’t develop their own vaccines and need protection.

This is all well and true, assuming in fact that someone can actually create a vaccine. The Chinese are "said" to be in the late testing stages of several possibilities that they feel could be available sometime in 2021, but who really trusts the Chinese anymore. Moreover, if 2021 is the earliest we can expect a vaccine, then what will we do come fall of 2020 when the expected second round of Covid-19 comes around?

If we go back to the SARS coronavirus crisis from the early 2000s, we never did create a working vaccine. The SARS virus basically lasted parts of two cold and flu seasons across the globe and then simply didn't come back for a third. I am not sure anyone really understand what brought it on or why it went away.

What we do know is that we have never had a vaccine for the common coronavirus (aka the common cold), much less a cure. People are hopeful that we can come up with something. After all, necessity is the mother of invention. But rather than sitting around waiting and hoping and planning on some sort of vaccine as a precursor for reopening the economy, perhaps we need a very real plan B that assumes that there will be no vaccine this fall when most experts expect it to come back.

Oh, and just to be clear. A journalist suggesting what is obvious to everyone doesn't really help. Just because some journalist is asking for a vaccine today, doesn't make it a failure if one isn't developed in the next few months here.