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Originally Posted by emathias
Obviously a vaccine is needed long-term to really make people confident. But an effective drug treatment would also have the ability to instill enough confidence in people to stop the current freefall.
An effective drug treatment is probably more likely in the near term than a vaccine, and there have been some hopeful stories about that. It'll still take a couple months to really prove out any treatment, but if that happens, and if those treatments bring the morality rate down to within spitting distance of the regular flu, things can start to get back to normal. 30 years ago there wouldn't have been hope of effective drug treatment, at least not without significant, risky side effects, but drug treatment of viruses has made some stunning progress the past two decades - drugs have revolutionized the HIV epidemic without a vaccine, for example - so it is now a plausible possibility. We would still need to take precautions, but something that reduces hospitalizations to the point that a health system collapse is averted would enable people to go back to work, etc, and be the start of a recovery.
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The potential shortage of ventilators is also a choke point. I don't think they're going to start encouraging people to be in public gatherings for a long while yet, because they can't manufacture another 100,000 ventilators overnight.
And a potential drug? Don't forget that the common cold is also a corona virus, and there's never been a know effective treatment for that. I wouldn't hold my breath. Buckle up, because we're in for a long ride.
My question to those with a background in economics is, is this market downturn short lived? Or is it years in the making? And will we continue this free-fall for the rest on the year? I know it sounds insensitive to say this, as many people are losing their jobs and businesses. But it's very frustrating to watch my net worth hemorrhage away.