The "experts" continue to shout from the rooftops that we need a vaccine to flatten the curve and end the pandemic. They are insistent we need a Coronavirus vaccine. in fact, Dr. Fauci says the U.S. won't get back to normal until late 2021 without the introduction of a vaccine. COVID19 is one of seven human coronavirus's that were first discovered in the mid-1960s. Let's look at a vaccine with which most of us are familiar.
The 1918 Flu pandemic of 1918 was the introduction of the world to the flu. There are four types/strains of flu that make their annual visit to people around the world Though the 1918 Flu pandemic was the apparent beginning, the flu virus wasn't isolated until 1933. Since then we are annually cajoled, coaxed, or encouraged to get our annual flu shot. Another nine years transpired when in 1942, a bivalent vaccine was produced after the discovery of influenza B. Now 78 years later and with all of the wonderful advances in medical science, and regardless of the welcome introduction of a flu vaccine, we still have the flu. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are three to five million cases of the flu and approximately 290,000 to 650,000 deaths.
We've had a vaccine for the flu for 78 years and yet the flu is still here. What is so magic about a potential coronavirus/COVID19 vaccine and it's eventual availability throughout the world? While vaccines are a logical approach to the elimination of diseases and viruses, to date only smallpox has been eliminated worldwide.
“It seems, to me, unlikely that a vaccine is an off-switch or a reset button where we will go back to pre-pandemic times,” said Yonatan Grad, an assistant professor of infectious diseases and immunology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.