What if we can't think of a COVID-19 vaccine or cure? Then what?

Pizz the reaosn why the belief is that in 12-18 month's here will be some theraputic treatment is due to the fact that, even forgetting the R&D side of things, clinical trials take time to run, analyze, and ensure both efficacy and human safety. First, just about every other clinical trial has been put on hold for now. So it's easier to get Covid-19 trials out the door and into legitimate studies. Second, given the massive number of patients with the Wuhan Virus (we're talking nearly 1MM cases glonbally, ~700K active cases, and 250K closed (of which 202K have recovered and 48K have died) as of April 2nd according to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/</a">Worldmeter. The growth rate on this is clearly logtrithmic.) we have a significant "Study ready" population. Additionally, this is getting top priority in terms of being studied around the globe. So new research on Covid-19 is getting published at a fast pace and is being reviewed by researchers, virulogists, epidemiologists, and the FDA in order to help shape response. Plus, there's a ton of research on SARS and MERS that is being levered to help with this.

Typically, drug trials take 6-7 years and go across three phases. Phase 1 trials are small, maybe 10 to 100 people, to look at safety, dosage, and identify side effects. If a company wants, it can do a Phase 0 Trial, but those are often part of Phase 1 and are even smaller. They basically test Pharmacodynamics and Pharmakenetics in humans to see that the drugs "Work". Phase 2 trials are between 100 and 500 people, and are used to determine the initial efficacy. Phase 3 studies are 1000 to 5000 people and are used to confirm the results of Phase 1 and Phase 2 studies. What we're seeing now, besides what looks like a moratorium on R&D and trials for other treatments, is that the FDA is using all of it's available paths to approval (fast track, accellerated, break through status, and priority review) to expedite the process because the Coronavirus meets multiple guidelines that qualify. The two advantages of these statuses is that it allows for review to happen concurrently as the trials are progressing, and alternative trial design can get employed to make it easier to clear some hurdles.

Now, here's the thing. the process for single therapy treatments - using a singular drug to help treat a disease - is going to go faster than a combination therapy. For treatments like Remdesivir (Gilead's ART for HIV) or Kevzara (Regeneron and Sanofi's RA product) which are already on the market, doing a Phase II/Phase III trial isn't that hard to get set up. Both of these products are already approved by the FDA, so going into new trials for a new indication isn't as hard since the majority of the Phase 1 and Phase 2 data is already there for side effects, dosage, dynamics, etc. The big thing is efficacy and modifications to dosage, etc. for treating this.

Combination Therapy requires more work. So it will have a longer process. The French doctor who treated with a combination of Chloroquine and Azythromicin treated a small cohort. Forgetting that the cohort study wasn't done in any regular fashion (not randomized, no control, etc.), Usually more of those studies need to be done in order to confirm the safety of the combination before moving onto larger studies.

For new treatments though, assuming that all resources are being directed for this and assuming that a new treatment can be developd in 6 months that can fight the disease, even on an accellerated timetime, we're still looking at 12 months for testing and review before it gets approved for widespread use.

Here's the thing - all of these studies are going to take time. IT's just the nature of studying drug interaction. We can't assume that what shows promise won't actually kill us. I'd rather run the risk of having Covid-19 than I would take a Chloroquine/Z-Pak combo when I don't know how strong the interaction between those two drugs can be. Chloroquine already has serious side effects and Z-Pak can have an adverse reaction with Anti-Malarials like Chloroquine. If I have to take Remdesivir (which is a daily use medication) or Kevzara (which is used every other week to treat RA), how long does the treatment last and does it become a daily/regular treatment or am I only treated for a short period of time and transitioned off the drug? What happens when you come off the medication? What's the risk of getting Cronoavirus again?

Now, comparing this to HIV is an entirely different question and it's nto a fair one to ask. HIV medication has come a very long way since the 80s. Additionally, HIV treatment is a post-infection treatment. There is a relatively low population in the US (the US Gov't - via HIV.Gov - is suggesting 1.1MM people in the US have HIV) and the I've read reports suggesting the global population is approximately 40MM. Given the current state of treatment, the ability for the virus to mutute, etc., pretreating patients with a vaccine could cause more harm than good when you consider how HIV is transmitted. Compare that to what we're seeing with 1MM people with this virus in ~4 Months, and you can see why people are focusing so much on getting a treatment out in a 12-18 month window.

As far as the depression question goes, even if we come out of this in 6 months, we're still looking at an economic depression and downturn given how fast everything has happened and the odds of certain industries recovering quickly.