Rongnongno Loc: FL

Cure vs vaccine...

To me the cure is more important than a vaccine.
So far it seems that once you get the virus and are cured there is no proof that you will not get it again. WHO is even warning about this.

Than makes me wonder if the vaccine - if one is found - is worth anything. The purpose of a vaccine is to train the body to react against a virus. Seeing the successive warning about being to get it again and again - meaning that the body has not learned to defend itself - what is the point of a vaccine?

Is not a vaccine made to prevent getting ill from the virus by exposing the body to a weakened or dead virus so that it learns from exposure???

If a person who has survived the first round is exposed again and that person's body has not learned anything... What is the point of a corona vaccine???

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Do you have any idea of how many virus infections we can cure today? None, zero, not a one. You can't kill a virus like you can a bacteria or parasite because it is not alive. It is simply a short string of RNA or sometimes DNA. It kind of like a crystal. There are ways to dissociate it, unfortunately those methods also are fatal to the human body. Support the patient and hope the body is able to fight off the infection is all we can do!

Almost all new vaccines are recombinant DNA not attenuated virus.

Najataagihe

1. There is no cure for any virus.

2. A vaccine will not prevent you from getting a virus. It will, as you mentioned, HELP the body develop anti-bodies that will reduce the effects of one. It doesn't provide immunity.

3. Annual flu shots to reduce effects are based on what the medical community THINKS is going to be the most prevalent virii that year. Sometimes, they guess wrong.

4. COVID-19 is merely the newest in the family of Corona virii. It was first noticed in 2019, thus the name.

5. Corona virii have been traced to about 8000 years ago, so they have been around a long time.

6. Because it is a virus and can't be killed or contained, you WILL eventually be exposed to it. The current lock down is to prevent the medical system from being overwhelmed with patients until they can gear up to handle the load, not prevent anyone from contracting the virus.

7. 98%(!) of those who contract COVID-19 and show symptoms recover fully. We have no idea how many people have contracted the virus and shown no symptoms, at all.

Conclusion: the sky is not falling, no matter what you have heard.

ricardo00

A cure is important, possibly more important than a vaccine and many companies are indeed working on treatments for COVID-19 by attacking the SARS-CoV-2. The drug that is furthest along works by inhibiting replication of the virus (Remdesivir) and is already in multiple clinical trials. Other treatments include producing antibodies that block the virus from infecting cells as well as ways to stop the parts of the immune response that the virus induces which cause acute respiratory distress syndrome and multiple organ failures in patients (IL-6 inhibitors like tocilizumab and sarilumab). However a vaccine that decreases the chances of being infected with SARS-CoV-2 would also be important. No one can tell if a vaccine will work until it is tried, and these clinical trials can take a while. And there are many different strategies that are being tried to make an effective vaccine (more than 50 different approaches). The WHO warning I think was just meant as a caution to people that just having antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 is not a guarantee that you can't be infected again (and in fact was based on the finding that some patients may have had a second infection) so not to act recklessly. These patients may have a second infection that is not as severe or the antibodies stimulated by a vaccine may be more potent than those some people produced during an infection to ward off a second infection. So it is very early days and it is unlikely any one single approach will be effective in all cases. So if you feel that the news media has over emphasized the role of a vaccine in containing this virus at the expense of finding a cure, I wouldn't want to argue this with you. But be assured that many people are actively working on trying to develop treatments for patients with COVID-19 as well as vaccines.

11bravo

All very good, unless you're in that 2%...

SalvageDiver Loc: Huntington Beach CA

I would replace 'cure' for 'recover'.

As Curmudgeon said, there is no cure for viruses, no cure for colds (rhinovirus), no cure for flu (influenza virus), no cure, that I'm aware of, for human corona viruses, etc. Once you contract a virus, there is only supportive care with only a very few exceptions, such as tamiflu for influenza and antivirals for HIV. Your immune system does all the work on its own. If you recover from the virus, you're immune system figured out to destroy it. So you have some immunity, but for how long? Since this is a new virus, nobody knows yet and only time will tell. Some immunities are permanent, such as polio and some immunities wear off, such as influenza viruses which require periodic boosters.

Just for the sake of this discussion, lets say that there is no long term-immunity. If this were true, people would repeatedly get sick with covid. Sweden would never reach 'herd immunity', no vaccine would likely be effective. Convalescent plasma treatment would prove to be ineffective for supportive care. The virus would continually recirculate thru the world population until...?. Using antibody tests for sending people back to work would be fruitless as they'd just get sick again. Without a vaccine, the only long-term hope that I can think of would be an optimized treatment algorithm for improving supportive care and/or an effective anti-viral drug.

I believe your description of a vaccine is accurate for live or inactivated vaccines. But there are several other vaccine types. Another vaccine type teaches the body to recognize certain proteins or parts unique to the virus as foreign and then to attack it. Viruses, live or dead, aren't necessary for this type.

Regarding your last question, sometimes it takes multiple vaccines (or exposures) to 1) develop a full immunity or 2) immunity weakens over time and requires a booster to regain full protection or 3) the virus mutates retiring a new vaccine.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

So what is the most important is great "Treatment" which will help turn that 98% who show symptoms and survive into something in the high end of 99% like some flus that the death rate is .1% (or is that written as .01%) in those showing symptoms who die. So a survival rate of 99.99%, is that correct or am I overdue for some sleep?

Treatment that will produce a high survival rate is as good as a cure to my mind since even things we have a cure for still have some fatalities due to lack of treatment, allergies to the medicines etc etc. When I was in first grade I was given oral Sulfa Drugs and guess what - every time I violently threw them back up. Allergic to the stuff, also resistant to the penicillin family but I can take them, just have to take them twice as long as other people. My mother was completely allergic to penicillin.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

I am not sure where you are coming from saying a 'vaccine does not work'.

A vaccine expose the body to a weakened or dead virus in order to train the body to fight off the virus if exposed to it later on. The vaccine by itself does not kill, a virus, that is true but the result is the virus is killed by the body. Therefore vaccine work as intended.

Teach a child to swim and hopefully if he falls into the water he survives. A vaccine teaches the body to swim.

To say it does not or never works is grossly misleading. Polio, measles virus vaccines are effective and work by example. Some need to be repeated periodically (booster shot) or even updated but they work.

Something else, a virus can evolve over time, such as the flu. In this case you always or almost always get 'last year' version yet it protects from last year and the previous ones too.

So....

Why are you saying vaccines do not work? I puzzled.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

There ARE cures for viruses. Chronic Hepatitis C can be cured.

Not all vaccines offer 100% protection. Some require multiple doses - consider the childhood vaccinations given at 2,4,6, and 18 months and then again at 5 years. Sometimes a vaccine is partly effective but better than nothing, and then a better vaccine comes along. We have seen this with the Shingles vaccine.

arden1939

I hate this thought but from the big picture point of view, the planet's environmental jealth would be a lot better off with only 3 billion humans around -- called the culling of the flock -- go virus, argh!!!

sscnxy

Even if the immune efficacy of a vaccine dissipates over time, there is probably an element, though small, of immune memory residing in some population of immune cells in the body, which will be able to respond more quickly to the next viral antigen exposure. This would be sort of a herd immunity, not induced by a natural viral infection, but by viral vaccination.

tairving Loc: Magnolia, Texas USA

The statement that there is no proof that one develops immunity (via either the virus itself or a vaccine) cannot be taken as proof that one does not develop such immunity. As this point all they are saying is that they do not yet know.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

The body can develop antibodies, but a vaccine makes it easier for the body to do that. God helps those who help themselves, and the vaccine is that self-help.

andesbill

There are apparently some people who have been cured of HIV, most of the rest are taking drugs that let them live an otherwise “normal” life.
The treatment for HIV, which is a lifetime infection, except in a few rare cases, must be unlike any treatment for COVID19.
There will probably be a combination treatment involving anti-virals and a drug to tamp down the immune system where appropriate.

olemikey Loc: 6 mile creek, Spacecoast Florida

Maybe "Natures Way" of dealing with us, as in what to do with the planet's top predator once the population exceeds the earth's ability to support it (that is where we are now, on the edge or already headed over it), and millions perish every year due a number of things beyond old age....it would not take much for that to become billions.

Nature's Way - a song by the band Spirit - from Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus - kind of fitting...........

"It's just my opinion, don't have a cow" !