They have now identified at least three strains of COVID-19. A vaccine will not be developed for another year but the question is will a vaccine that works well for one strain be the same for other strains. Maybe or maybe not. One thing he would like to see is everyone in the country get a blood test now so that we know precisely how many people have the virus or have had it and are thus immune. If that is not possible then random selection of people for blood tests. Then we can , given our data on death rates, determine if the death rate is significantly more than the flu or significantly less. If its the latter then we can begin to ease our limitations and get back to "normal" everyday stuff soon. If the former then our restriction remain in place pending a workable vaccine. He says that a tested blood draw can provide results withing 24 hrs and they are testing a machine in our local trauma center that should be ready to go in a week. In that light he said that many people already have had the virus but don't even know about it and are thus carrying the antibodies. That would provide even more information in determining how long the living restrictions should be.

He also gave lots of credit to California and how fast we've responded-otherwise we would have been in a N.Y. situation. Finally, he said that the data was available at the beginning of this year that had it been acted on this mountain we are climbing would have been nothing more than a speed bump.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2020 08:23AM by waterfield.