>>11478935>1. Is it *possible* to create a vaccine?Yes, but human trials will take some time, all the vaccines being produced through various approaches and various locations around the world right now have to be tested for both safety and efficacy, it's not like they can just churn out a molecule that magically instructs your immune system to successfully fight off the virus. Ideally it should, but if it's like with the flu, the virus will mutate faster year-on-year than we can produce new vaccines for. Vaccines are basically an inert or neutralized copy of the virus molecule, just similar enough that it instructs your immune system to recognize the virus and to know it's a threat.
>2. Is it *possible* to create a cure? By 'cure' I don't necessarily mean a treatment that will work 100% of the time, just something that significantly reduces the chance of death or long-term complications.Yes, and researchers already discovered that monoclonal antibodies created to fight the original SARS epidemic in 2003 seem to bind to SARSCoV-2 as well so that's good news, the bad news is they have to be mass produced on an enormous scale (1 gram per patient, that's a lot of antibodies) and the earliest we can expect them is next year. Antibodies also do nothing but neutralize the virus, so they can only be used to help patients in severe cases stay alive long enough to develop its own immune response.
The problem is, the virus attacks heart, lung, kidney and testicular cells, and early reports from several countries indicate it can cause massive fibrosis scarring in otherwise healthy young patients leading to permanent illnesses such as pulmonary fibrosis or kidney failure. Tweet with scans from a French doctor, with other doctors saying they've seen similar cases:
https://twitter.com/ZeClint/status/1238517047216222210So while we'll eventually probably be able to both cure and vaccinate against SARSCoV-2, there will be no such magic cures for the illnesses it can result in.
