We’re in the hands of white-coated researchers
The world has taken a decidedly Darwinian turn because of this pandemic, and only those with staying power will avoid the deadly virus and outlast the economic onslaught.
The duration of this catastrophe is unknown and will be determined by whether social distancing, tracking and isolation policies are enacted and enforced, along with how soon scientists can develop a vaccine.
The consensus seems to be that a vaccine is at least 12 months away, even though billions of dollars are being allocated, technologies are being harnessed, new approaches are being formulated and existing drugs are being tested.
Economically, however, there exists a partial “vaccine,” which consists of the trillions of dollars earmarked by governments around the world to backstop enterprises, workers and economies through gargantuan bailouts for businesses and consumers. This must continue until there’s a foolproof medical cure.
In other words, the world’s fate lies in the hands of white-coated researchers in laboratories around the world. To date, the front-runner in the race for a vaccine is Moderna Inc., which became the first to conduct human trials on an experimental compound. The drug it’s testing is not a traditional vaccine, but a short-term stopgap treatment aimed at helping healthy people produce anti-COVID-19 antibodies themselves.
Moderna’s tests began on March 16, but definitive results won’t be available for two months.
Even if they’re promising, the drug cannot be mass produced and will take two or three months before it can be distributed to health-care workers and first responders, and even longer before it will be available to anyone outside the medical field.
In the United States alone, there are one million frontline medical workers who are at risk.
Technology is also being used to speed up drug development. AbCellera Biologics, a Vancouver-based pharmaceutical firm that conducts research and development of antibody therapies, has identified 500 antibodies capable of fending off COVID-19 and is honing in on the most promising ones to test.
Big data is also being deployed to map hot spots, fevers and the spread of the virus for mandatory isolation purposes, and to identify potential drugs.
For instance, the world’s fastest supercomputer, IBM’s Summit, can reduce screening for useful drugs from months to just days and has identified 77 small molecule drug compounds that are now being evaluated by pharmaceutical researchers.
There is also research underway into drugs that have successfully fought off malaria, Ebola, Zika and SARS.
For instance, two malaria-fighters, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, showed some success in a French study with 42 COVID -19 patients. It’s a slow, painstaking process because, as one scientist said, “there is no shortcut, there is just biology.”
The worldwide economic carnage will continue for an indeterminate time and the progress will be uneven. This is because social distancing and other necessary interventions are being ignored in some parts of the world and loosely imposed in others, which results in more cases and greater economic damage in those areas.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s delayed acceptance of the scientific facts, and his extension of the distancing guidelines that are currently in place, may slow the disease’s advance, but will not halt it until draconian shutdowns are imposed and a vaccine is developed.
At this point, if the economic shutdown lasts six months, which is likely, only companies in essential services — tech, pharma, food, health care, agriculture, resources, security, maintenance, logistics — will continue to operate. If the crisis lasts six months or more, the economy will never be the same and there will be a gigantic shakeout in sectors like tourism, hospitality, travel, retail, real estate, banking and manufacturing. Enterprises will shrink, fold or consolidate based on their staying power. Businesses that were struggling before the virus hit will simply never reopen. This calamity will also alter society’s demographics and behaviour, even after the arrival of a vaccine. It’s hard to imagine airlines, hotels, restaurants, tourism or cruise lines will bounce back for years to come.
The bad news is that we can expect this pandemic to last between 12 and 36 months, but the good news is that a vaccine will very likely be developed within that time frame, and as market guru Jim Cramer said, at least this “is not the bubonic plague.” Financial Post