Re:Stanford cancels in-person classes for rest of the quarter
by credit_guy on Saturday March 07, 2020 @09:52AM
(#22511753)
According to [1] the likelihood of approval for a drug entering Phase 1 trials is about 12%. So that's one reason to not be too excited. Another reason is that coronaviruses are one of the causes of the common cold (rhinoviruses another one). People have been looking for a cure for the common cold for hundreds of years. It's been challenging. It's possible that the efforts were not that focused as the common cold is not very deadly. Now that Covid19 appears to be more deadly, maybe the efforts will redouble. But maybe there are some fundamental reasons it's difficult to come up with a cure/vaccine for coronaviruses (like they mutate too quickly). I personally don't take for granted that there will be a vaccine in the next few years.
[1] https://www.bio.org/sites/default/files/legacy/bioorg/docs/C...
Re:Stanford cancels in-person classes for rest of the quarter
by hobofan on Saturday March 07, 2020 @10:54AM
(#22512147)
Even with a vaccine, if it spreads enough and the mutation rate is high enough, new strains of the virus (that the vaccination doesn't protect against) will spread every season.
Re:Stanford cancels in-person classes for rest of the quarter
by smileysteve on Saturday March 07, 2020 @03:27PM
(#22513813)
A working vaccine isn't guaranteed. Reminder that we haven't perfected the flu vaccine, it only applies to a few strains each year, and some years it misses more than hits
If there's a vaccine and a large sample of cases studies on treatment with antivirals, I'd assume its fatality rate would fall down to regular flu levels or somewhere near that. Therefore the spread wouldn't be treated like a pandemic as it is now.
0: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-06/moderna-s...