If this is of any consolation, I had a nice long conversation with my youngest son who is a molecular biologist from The University of California-San Francisco. So is his girlfriend from the Netherlands. Although they are primarily involved with cancer research, their colleagues at UCSF represent one of several sights across North America and the world researching a treatment (medicine) for COVID-19 as well as a vaccine. So, I asked him a bevy of questions hoping he could enlighten me further about this particular coronavirus and what the future might hold. Researchers have identified and isolated the antibodies of this corona virus which can lead to a human antibody that can lead to a medicine for people already infected with the virus. Of course, extensive testing will be necessary (on primates) before human clinical trials can begin but this does offer some hope for the future. If positive results are discovered, they will partner with a large Pharmaceutical company (such as Roche which is based in Switzerland) and potentially an effective medicine to stop the infection will me available. A true vaccine will be further down the road, but eventually one will be available probably by the first quarter of 2021.
Hopeful thinking will be that COVID-19 will follow SARS and begin to mutate itself down to the point where all it will produce in people is the common cold, and not upper respiratory infections that can be much more serious. Nobody can truly predict the future, but the CDC and the WHO have outsourced research work all over the world and eventually they'll close in on this virus. The good news, I suppose, is that this is temporary thing we are all experiencing and like SARS someday we'll reach the point where COVID-19 is no longer a threat to the population.
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