How is COVID-19 controlled until a vaccine is found?

[BaileyB]

There was an article on cnn saying exactly that, just this weekend. It was titled, what if there is no vaccine. The basic premise being that there have been some virus’ for which they have been completely unsuccessful in developing a vaccine. HIV being one, because it apparently mutates every time it replicates. But - they found an effective treatment. The common cold being the other elusive virus. I’ll try to post the link below. 

Worst case scenario - vaccine takes a long time or doesn’t ever happen (apparently, the fastest that a vaccine has previously been devoloped is four years - which is why 18 months to 2 years is optimistic) and/or there is no long term immunity - and we are in trouble... this is the new normal, until the virus miraculously goes away... aka Trumps theory.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/03/health/coronavirus-vaccine-never-developed-intl/index.html

Edited May 5, 2020 by BaileyB

[sothereiwas]

IIRC the big issue with getting a vaccine for cold is the rapid mutation more than the shape of the virus, and I also seem to recall someone opining that SARS-COV-2 didn't have the machinery to mutate rapidly, based on the gene sequencing. I dunno, ask me a software question, I can probably answer that. 

[carhill]

Cache of article on UCSF lab and their work on the -19 virus. Be sure to check out their reference article at Nature if interested in the science part.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MWehSTJYceIJ:https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/How-a-UCSF-lab-took-on-the-global-race-to-block-15238219.php

[schlumpy]

7 hours ago, carhill said:

Cache of article on UCSF lab and their work on the -19 virus. Be sure to check out their reference article at Nature if interested in the science part.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MWehSTJYceIJ:https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/How-a-UCSF-lab-took-on-the-global-race-to-block-15238219.php

Very interesting. Thanks for that. 

[Philosopher]

17 hours ago, sothereiwas said:

IIRC the big issue with getting a vaccine for cold is the rapid mutation more than the shape of the virus, and I also seem to recall someone opining that SARS-COV-2 didn't have the machinery to mutate rapidly, based on the gene sequencing. I dunno, ask me a software question, I can probably answer that. 

If the virus was to mutate rapidly, evolution would favour it becoming milder. A virus that kills its host, makes the host sick enough that they avoid others or encourages people to avoid contact out of fear of getting it will have a hard time spreading. On the other hand if the virus mutates so that person hardly notices they have it and people subsequently lose fear of it then the infected individual will not avoid others so much and so it will spread easily.

Therefore if no vaccine is found I think it is likely this virus will mutate into another coronavirus that causes nothing than a normal common cold, which no one will be afraid of.

[sothereiwas]

1 hour ago, Philosopher said:

If the virus was to mutate rapidly, evolution would favour it becoming milder.

I'm not an expert on this topic but I have to note that I'm not familiar with a lot of mild ebola strains, and it's also an RNA based virus and thus should be (I guess) subject to the same sorts of replication errors that mutate other RNA viruses. I know I've heard a lot of people opine as you have, but I'm not sure there is a lot of evidence to back it up. What does seem to happen is that humans who have survived one H1N1 (for instance) tend to survive the next one. Whether that's the virus, the immune system saying "hey, I remember something like this", or a combination of the two I'm not sure. 

Having said all that it would be fine if this bug got less deadly. 

[sothereiwas]

After a little more looking, it appears that the "spike", the protein that facilitates SARS-CoV-2 attaching to victim cells, is probably particularly stable. I'm not sure how the experts cited came to that conclusion but I have no specific reason to doubt them. Those experts also said this likely means COVID-19 probably won't come back more virulent like the 1918 Spanish flu did (hmmm, how about that) and that a vaccine should be possible. 

I don't believe this 100% but it is encouraging. 

[elaine567]

Quote

A pre-publication paper from a team at the University of Sheffield and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico suggests one reason that Europe and North America might have suffered much more than East Asia from Covid-19 is that we have been fighting a mutation of the virus which causes it, SARS-CoV-2. The team have analysed the ‘spike protein’ in the virus and found 14 different mutations, but one in particular has caused them concern.

Early in the outbreak – and this was true in Europe as well as in Asia – samples of the virus contained a version of the protein known as D614. But a different version, G614, began to emerge in samples from both Europe and China. In Italy and Switzerland, from early on, it was found to be the dominant version. Elsewhere in Europe, too, G614 rapidly displaced D614 – and seems to have a competitive advantage over it. Germany had a small outbreak of D614 followed by a second eruption of cases of G614. In Britain G614 quickly took over from D614. The same happened in North America – although the pattern is different across the country. In New York, samples have been almost entirely G614 whereas in Washington state – which has won praise for its handling of the epidemic – D614 has been more prevalent. The authors have been unable to track the evolution of D614 and G614 in China after 1 March owing to a lack of samples, but in Japan and Taiwan, early samples were all D614, with the G614 becoming more prevalent after 1 March.
...The good news is that the G614 version of the virus does not seem to result in a greater risk of hospitalisation – indicating that it doesn’t cause a more serious form of the disease. However, that does leave open the possibility that the G614 version is much more easily transmissible –perhaps explaining why this disease has proved so much harder to contain in some places than others.
...SARS-CoV-19 is considered to be a relatively stable virus with few mutations, which ought to make it a good candidate for vaccine development. The spike protein, however, is the part of the virus on which most vaccine-development is targeted, and so our chances of having a vaccine will depend on how it evolves from here.

Have we been fighting a very different disease to China? - The Spectator. 4 May 2020
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/have-we-been-fighting-a-very-different-disease-to-china-

[sothereiwas]

1 hour ago, elaine567 said:

Have we been fighting a very different disease to China?

It doesn't add to my confidence in self proclaimed experts when one says "the 'spike' is stable" and then another says "the 'spike' mutated early on and the G variant seems to be the most prevalent". Also, being a student of the alphabet, I note with interest the A-C, E, F, and an unknown number of other variants seem to be left out of the discussion. 

[elaine567]

I guess the A, B,C, E.F variants were not significant.
There will be people monitoring this virus all the time and the Sheffield/Los Alamos study is quite new.
These are fast moving times, so what may seem "fact" one day can be "rubbished" when new evidence shows up.
All these studies are being rushed through, some will be found to be well researched and accepted as "the truth" eventually, whilst others will be found to be poorly researched with glaring holes in the logic.
Time will tell.
The virus is not really that predictable, it will do what it wants to do, we can only really watch it for now.

[schlumpy]

Face it. Nature has pinned us to mat once again. We are not going to stop this virus. It is going to do with us as it will.

We can improve our odds if we are in one of the high risk groups by going to the doctor for a physical and taking care of what is wrong with or is soon to be wrong with us.

Get your blood pressure under control and lose weight. Those are two of the morbidity factors that the virus thrives on. Get your heart stronger by walking 20 minutes every day. We don't have to just take what's coming to us.

For those who do have to take it, limit your exposure if that is all you can do. Use the information provided by government to make good choices.

There are still others like the homeless that are just going to have to take their chances. It's reality.

[sothereiwas]

I got a pneumonia shot. Not sure what that will do for me but it seemed possibly prudent. Other than that, I'm pretty isolated anyway. There are a few promising treatments being looked at, some as simple as nebulizing diluted H2O2 into a CPAP/ventilator, some as complex as high powered anti-virals. Several vaccines are entering testing. 

We're going to beat this one as long as we don't succeed in screwing ourselves. 

[JustGettingBy]

Remember, a vaccine isn't exactly a 'magic bullet'.

The virus could mutate into multiple strains, each with a different vaccine. Could be quite damaging. Virus could also mutate before a vaccine. I'm not claiming to be an expert on vaccines, but its possible that if we get halfway to a vaccine, and then the virus suddenly mutates, we could be back to stage 1.

Also, if everything were to re-open, people will still be reluctant to gather, so businesses won't exactly be booming once they re-open. Who's going to go to a movie theater or sporting event if the virus is still kicking around at even a fraction of its current strength in such a big crowd, even if you haven't been in over a year.

Also, just pointing this out here, if a natural disaster we can predict (such as a hurricane) barrels in on a heavily infected area, will people be allowed to evacuate given how much travel is shut down. Force people to be exposed to a hurricane, or force people to be exposed to the virus? Pick you poison.

Yeah, I know I sound like a downer, but just bringing up some thoughts that have been either not brought up, or only brought up in passing.

 

 

[Juha]

This virus is more contagious than others.  It is not very deadly more than normal viruses we have here already.

More people have been exposed and have had it than once thought.  Many, many more.

If you understand and research standard virus protocols from people who have done this their whole career, day in and day out.

You will see that this is being handled directly opposite of how it should be by our politicians, public health officials, and the media.

 

By handling things with lock downs, shutting businesses, masks, etc more people will die from other things than Covid 19 in the end

Also by trying to extend this thing out the way they are will accomplish nothing in the end, the same amount of people still need to get this until

there are not enough hosts for it to survive anymore, similar amount of people are going to die from it.  When things open up again we will see a spike

in illnesses and deaths because there is no safe time to open up.  It is statistically impossible for no one to have this, you can't lock people away, social distance 

a virus away.  You protect the elderly and at risk people.

 

What we are doing now with stay at home, close businesses, masks has no scientific evidence that it does anything, none what so ever.

Research what the proven scientific protocols are in situations like this and you will be enlightened. 

This from infectious disease doctors, epidemiologists, who have made this their whole career, day in and day out

They know what they are doing and talking about.  Our public health officials are compromised or have an agenda which is not in our best interests

 

 I am sure some of you will brush me off, think I am an idiot, etc.  I have done much research on this since February and what I am presenting is facts

from what I have learned in the past few months.  I hope some of you at least go do some research... 

 

I might add if you use Google to do research don' t bother  use Duckduckgo.com if you want a search engine that does not track you

and scrub things from your seaches

 

[Juha]

 

Also, want to add that a vaccine at best only works for 50%.  That is upper end number,it is more likely 30-40%

So all this talk about needing a vaccine for a virus that is nothing special to be honest, that will only work for 30-40% of people

We are fooling ourselves, research and educate yourself...

[sothereiwas]

1 minute ago, Juha said:

Also, want to add that a vaccine at best only works for 50%. 

Based on all the other SARS vaccines we have? Tetanus vaccine is about 96% effective, Polio, over 99%, Measles, over 96%, and so on. When a flu vaccine "fails" it's generally because one or more prevalent strains of the flu were not included in the shot. You're actually pretty immune to a bunch of flu strains that you didn't get exposed to, the vaccine was just not for what you got.

[schlumpy]

I find it humorous to see men with beards wearing masks. It might make them feel better but without a good seal around the edges the protection is minimal. 

[sothereiwas]

3 minutes ago, schlumpy said:

I find it humorous to see men with beards wearing masks. It might make them feel better but without a good seal around the edges the protection is minimal. 

If the goal is to just keep splatter down so the wearer is less capable of potentially infecting others it's probably effective. I always appreciated people in asia who would wear a simple surgical mask if they had a sniffle. If nothing else comes of this I'd love to see the entire world take up this practice. That and hand washing. 

[Fletch Lives]

Well, you can't stop covid. All you can do is have lockdowns and distancing to flatten the curve, so that hospitals are not overwhelmed at any point.

As more people get the virus, recover, and are immune to it, and a vaccine comes out, then the risk will be reduced (Maybe in a year or so).

The only way you won't catch it eventually would be luck, or total isolation from society for about a year until a vaccine is available.

[thefooloftheyear]

When I think back...We spent most of our free time outside...We collected wild animals from the woods and handled them,..We got dirty almost on a daily basis...we swam in waters that were probably far less than pristine, and God knows what type of germs we exposed ourselves to...Yeah, we washed ourselves, but not as religiously as now...I grew up in a house where we had only one bathroom for 5 people to use...The whole aspect of disinfecting everything in sight and using hand sanitizer at every turn is a relatively new thing...

Everything now is changed...People consume antibiotics like candy now...Because of technology, no one is getting exposed to really much outside their own little spaces...Add to that aspect, the fact that so much of the population is out of shape and overweight...Is this feature of Western culture the reason for such a higher incidence than other locales???

I can't help but think there is so much immune compromised people(along with co morbidites) walking around that its inevitable that these types of things can take out so many people.....And it's likely something that will continue to happen...

Just some thoughts..