Covid-19 pandemic: What will happen if we can't produce a vaccine?

 

There are over 175 Covid-19 vaccines in development. Almost all government strategies for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic are based on the idea that one of these vaccine candidates will eventually provide widespread protection against the virus and enable us all to return to our normal lives.

But there’s no guarantee that this will happen. Even in the most promising cases, we can’t yet be sure that any vaccine will permanently prevent people from catching Covid-19 and enable the disease to be gradually eradicated or at least contained to limited outbreaks. Vaccines may just reduce the severity of symptoms or provide temporary protection. So what will happen if this is the case?

Some people have argued that when enough of the population have caught Covid-19, and produced an immune response to it, we will have reached “herd immunity” and the virus will no longer be able to spread. But this is a misunderstanding of what herd immunity means and how viruses spread and so is not a realistic aim for Covid-19 control. Read More