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Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) Vaccine: Myth, Legend or (future) Reality?

By Foster22 | Dr Bear | 23 May 2020


Nowadays a vaccine against Covid-19 is not available, however several projects are carried out by researchers worldwide to achieve this goal! The development and marketing of a new vaccine requires time and resources, not only to verify its effectiveness, but also to assess its safety and reliability.

Hopefully, a hypothetical vaccine will be available in 2021, until then we should keep physical distancing (I don’t like the term “social distancing”, we can call or text our friends) and masks to avoid Covid-19.

Every day we are continuing “assaulted” by media news, but there are specialized web platforms, where you can follow researcher news and breakouts. Some of the most important and reliable source are:

  • The official web page of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Covid-19. You will find information for protect your-self and on what you should do if sick.
  • The official web page of National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Covid-19. You will find news about Covid-19 testing as well as information for healthcare professionals and the public
  • The official web page of ClinicalTrials.gov. Which is a database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies conducted around the world. In which is also possible find all major studies on human about Covid-19 and its vaccine.

There are several others reliable source of information, almost every country has its official web page on Covid-19 breakout.

Plan A: if we discover an effective and safe vaccine

There are many protective research projects for the development of a vaccine, some of which are already in phase II (each drug must complete 3 research phases in humans to be approved and marketed). It is very likely that any of these will be able to develop a vaccine.

All countries will begin to buy the vaccine from the pharmaceutical company that developed it first. Leaving aside the argument that buying the shares of that pharmaceutical company could be a good investment. The richer countries are likely to have access to the vaccine first. Healthcare professionals and people at greatest risk of dying from Covid-19 will be vaccinated first, then the rest of population. At the same time the restrictions and rules to prevent the infection will be relaxed, until the whole population is vaccinated, after that they will no longer be needed.

Life will resume as before the Covid-19 pandemic, but with greater attention to future epidemic outbreaks.

Plan B: we don’t discover any effective vaccine

This future is possible, although for now it seems the least likely. In this case, we should live with Covid-19 for a long time, perhaps forever. However not having a vaccine is not the end of the world. In fact, there are already many diseases for which we don't have a vaccine and yet infections are the third leading cause of death in the world according the World Health Organization (WHO).

However over time more and more people will acquire natural immunity against Covid-19 and deaths will be limited (hopefully) thanks to the reorganization of healthcare systems. Not guaranteeing healthcare access to all covid-19 patients could be dangerous, not only from a health point of view, but also economically. Tourism in that country would collapse and sick workers would not be able to go to the workplace. The restrictions and rules to prevent the infection will last longer.

So, what situation in the future?

Likely, both Covid-19 vaccine and Covid-19 drugs will be available. Countries are putting pressure on pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines and drugs as soon as possible. All the clinical trials have their information published and accessible to guarantee correctness from both scientific and ethical point of views (yes this is an advice to check not only on Wikipedia page but also to the direct official sources).

Medicines and medical techniques are already in development to reduce the risk of serious infection and death. Some of these drugs, however, have significant side effects. According CNN President Donald Trump claimed he is taking daily doses of hydroxychloroquine; however medical experts and the US Food and Drug Administration question its efficacy and warn of potentially harmful side effects.

So, still in developing doesn’t mean it is proved effective and safe on healthy people, even if the US president is taking it. However, it true several studies are investigating on hydroxychloroquine and other drugs and some of these are really promising.

In future both a new vaccine and medical treatments for Covid-19 will save many lives. Other futures are unlikely, although we must say that 2020 is surprising us, in the wrong way…

So now Covid-19 vaccine is a Myth, but not a Legend, because all information seems say that it will become Reality. Meanwhile we should carry on our life and do those big and small things that give us happiness.

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Dr Bear
Dr Bear

Hi! I created for talking about emerging medical and health topics. I hope you find it interesting. Nowadays, several source of information are contradictory, so i will try to make it easy. Notice that this is blog should not be considered as medical advice (for medical advice talk to your physician). (Dr Bear because I'm also a crypto enthusiast, but I see bear movements everywhere XD)

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