What makes you so convinced that a vaccine won’t happen?
Good question! I have two points to make as an answer. First how many viruses have we cured? The answer is very few, almost zero.
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I asked about a vaccine and you answered about a cure. Not the same thing.
The reasons involve biology and, to a lesser extent, money. Drug companies have developed treatments for a handful of viruses in the last few decades, such as HIV and the flu, but the arsenal is minimal when compared with all the antibiotics we have for treating bacteria. Remember that viruses are not bacteria, so antibiotics are no help.
The main difficulty is that viruses are technically not alive, instead depending on the “machinery” inside human cells to reproduce, said Zachary A. Klase, associate professor of biology at the University of the Sciences. So a drug that targets any part of that parasitic cycle could harm the patient in the process.
“You want something that targets the sickness and not you,” he said. “You need to look for the special things that only the virus is doing.”
More talk about treatments and cures. Not the same thing.
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Second is that even if a researcher today identified exactly how to block transmission or reproduction of the virus it takes a long time to weaponize it. Only in movies and even then needing a montage, is a cure or a weapon developed in short order. It takes a long time, measured in years to produce, distribute and administer a treatment or cure. Given those two data points alone it would be nothing short of the second coming of Jeebus if a cure arrived before herd immunity. It’s not impossible it’s just not probable.
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It does generally take years. But the process can be expedited to some degree, and it will be if the situation is urgent enough. Which this situation is. Also, new technologies are showing promise for faster vaccine development, although clinical trials will require time regardless of technology. Running clinical trials in parallel is expensive, but saves time. In this case there are quite a few being run at the same time.
Some of the more important viruses for which we have developed a vaccine:
