What Happens If A Coronavirus Vaccine Is Never Developed?

Travellers in protective suits are seen at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport after the lockdown was lifted in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and China's epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, April 10, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song

Rob Picheta, CNN: What happens if a coronavirus vaccine is never developed? It has happened before

As countries lie frozen in lockdown and billions of people lose their livelihoods, public figures are teasing a breakthrough that would mark the end of the crippling coronavirus pandemic: a vaccine.

But there is another, worst-case possibility: that no vaccine is ever developed. In this outcome, the public's hopes are repeatedly raised and then dashed, as various proposed solutions fall before the final hurdle.

Instead of wiping out Covid-19, societies may instead learn to live with it. Cities would slowly open and some freedoms will be returned, but on a short leash, if experts' recommendations are followed. Testing and physical tracing will become part of our lives in the short term, but in many countries, an abrupt instruction to self-isolate could come at any time. Treatments may be developed -- but outbreaks of the disease could still occur each year, and the global death toll would continue to tick upwards.

It's a path rarely publicly countenanced by politicians, who are speaking optimistically about human trials already underway to find a vaccine. But the possibility is taken very seriously by many experts -- because it's happened before. Several times.

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WNU Editor: From what I have read, and listening to the people that I know who are knowledgeable about this, they are all telling me the same thing. A vaccine will be found, and probably manufactured and distributed in 2021. It relieves me that they are this confident. But I am also lhave concerns that they may be wrong. I have lost count over the past two months on how much the narrative for this virus and the pandemic that it has spawn has changed. Who is to say that the narrative behind the development of a vaccine may also change. I guess we will know by next year.