What happens if a COVID-19 Vaccine Is Never Made

We hear a lot about flattening the curve. A lot of people think that flattening the curve is to prevent death. But this is not the point of flattening the curve. The point, the whole purpose of flattening the curve is to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.

Basically, all flattening the curve does is kick the can down the road. It's to slow the virus down so as to buy researchers time. During this added time two things must occur.

First, ventilators and hospital rooms must increase. When a second wave occurs, these will prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed during this second wave.

Second, can this second wave be prevented. Surely, the virus might just flat out disappear. But we cannot count on that happening. During the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, a second wave did occur. And this second wave was far worse than the first wave. So, we must assume a second wave will occur. But, can it be prevented. The only way this can happen is if a vaccine is invented. So, second, flattening the curve buys time for researchers to come up with a vaccine.

Lacking a vaccine, probably about 80% of us will be exposed at one time or another. This may happen during the second wave. It may happen during a third or fourth wave. it's possible COVID-19 may be a seasonal thing, just like the flu. Of course, the only thing that can prevent this from happening is a vaccine.

So, second, researchers must come up with a vaccine. At this time, the vaccine must be proven both safe and effective. The problem with this is that there has never been an effective vaccine for any RNA virus, which the coronovirus is.

There are some diseases that have been stopped with vaccines. Polio is one of these. The flu is not one. There is a shot for the fu, but it's not really a vaccine. This is because it does not guarantee you will not get the flu in the way a polio vaccine prevents you from getting polio. Likewise, there is no vaccine for Aids.

So, our question of the day is: What happens if we never get a COVID-19 Vaccine? Do we stay locked up in our homes forever? I hate to say it, but that is not even a possibility. We have now been in lockdown for seven weeks. You have depression level unemployment levels. You have people who are having trouble feeding their kids.

The solution to this problem is not government handouts. Sure, you can give people $2,200 a month. But this will not solve the problem because, with no economy, the government will at some point run out of money.

Likewise, giving people $2,200 to sit at home does not help with self esteem. For me personally, I wouldn't mind sitting at home for a while. I wouldn't mind a month or so off work. But, after a time, this will start to make people feel lazy. This is where you have things like depressions and suicides increase. Moral decreases. Feelings of self worth decrease.

So ,the only solution is to get people back to work.

During this period of mitigation, so called essential workers were allowed to keep working. This includes healthcare workers. It includes grocery store workers and farmers. It involves a variety of other middle people. It includes car repair shops, etc. It includes truckers and warehouse workers.

The owners of these businesses got very creative. They developed strategies to stay safe while staying open. Social distancing was enacted. Masks may have been required. But they were able to accomplish both tasks of staying open and mitigating.

So, if this was made possible, then why can't the rest of the economy open? This would not require people to open shop. It would be their choice. And customers would not have to, say, get their hair cut at a barber shop. But, they would have the choice. That's what you call capitalism.

And this would give these shop owners a chance to get creative. They could develop strategies for complying with mitigation, such as social distancing and requiring masks to be worn.

Why not open the economy right now? We paused everything at first with good reason. There was a lot we did not know about this virus. Initially we were told it had a 3-5% death rate. Now we know it is 0.2-0.7% death rate. That is still too high, but not quite as bad as initially thought. We know that it's spread can be lessened with mitigation, as we are already doing. I also think people are much more aware of the disease now, compared to in March where college students were flooding beaches in Florida during spring break.

I see now that they are cancelling 4th of July parades already. Really. We can't hide from this virus all our lives. We can't stop living our lives because of this virus. We can be safe, but we can also start living again. There is something that could be way worse than this virus. Keep people locked up, keep telling us we can't go to the store, keep taking stuff we enjoy away, and we are going to start getting depressed. And Lord knows that happens when people get depressed.

And, if the economy doesn't get going again, you are going to have an uptick in crime. You are going to have an uptick in murders. You are going to have an uptick in suicides. People with illnesses are told to stay home. They are not allowed to get necessary life saving procedures. And so, these diseases are going to start killing people.

Nothing is going to change between today and tomorrow. Nothing is going to change in a week, or a month. So we might as well open the economy up right now. We can do it, and we can do it safely.