[rafaelturk]

For me this is a perfect example of wishful thinking.

It's really hard for average person to accept reality: This virus, like all others, will last for a long time. We won't have, in a foreseeable future, a treatment neither a cure. Cancer, HIV or even seasonal flue are good examples examples of diseases that were discovered decades ago for which science still don't have a cure, there are a few treatments or easing medication, but none of them can be actually cured.

I expect that people will move from crazy solution to another on a regular basis until a final cure is found.. my expectation is this will last for years.

[softwarejosh]

Counterpoint, the numbers are very hopeful in reference to vitamin D, and we are discovering more things about covid than we have about flus in a long time. You have all eyes on this epidemic, our infrastructure cannot handle life right now. To view this as just another bug here to stay is to drastically underestimate the extremes people will go to.

[Dylan16807]

We have extremely good treatments for HIV. And that one is particularly difficult to cure because it infects your immune system.

Cancer isn't an infection and is a million different diseases lumped together.

We could prevent the flu much more reliably if it didn't mutate so much. Will this disease do the same? Maybe. It's very hard to know.

[nradov]

So far SARS-CoV-2 mutates much slower than the various influenza strains due to fundamental differences in the RNA transcription mechanism. That is unlikely to change.

[tim333]

The evidence is good that Vit D deficiency makes covid worse. Avoiding that is more common sense than a crazy solution.

Re the lasting for years, Thailand where I am has gone from 3000+ cases to zero local transmissions. Mostly from basic stuff like masks, testing and quarantine. I hope this can be replicated in other countries.

[eli_gottlieb]

Please, if this is your view, you're welcome to refrain from taking any Tamiflu or getting a flu shot. Learn what the flu was like for our ancestors who had no defenses.

[sarchertech]

We have multiple vaccine candidates that based on early human trials, and animal trials are very likely to work. Sure it's possible all of them could fail, but I wouldn't set my bet on that.

[ericb]

Right. There are around 100 vaccines in development. We have vaccines that have created binding antibodies in primates already. We have some that have been given to humans and produced antibodies as well.

Even pessimistically assuming 90% fail, you end up with 10 vaccines.

https://www.centerwatch.com/articles/12702-new-mit-study-put...

[soperj]

that's not pessimistic. Regularly only 6% of vaccines make it past trials.

[eli_gottlieb]

Yes, but with each trial stage a particular vaccine candidate passes, its likelihood of failing the further stages goes down. Most candidates that are going to fail, do so in the lab or in Phase 1 trials. A vaccine candidate that passes Phase 1 and Phase 2 has a pretty good outlook.

[ericb]

Do you have a source, because I provided one, and if you look, it says:

"Approval rates ranged from a high of 33.4 percent in vaccines for infectious diseases to 3.4 percent for investigational cancer treatments"

So by that source, I was wildly pessimistic.

[ericb]

Above I asked for a source for the 6% number. I randomly came across a second-hand source in this article that actually used that same number:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...