unless a cure is developed that is 100% effective and widely distributed where people can self medicate like taking an aspirin...I can't see how we get close to being back to normal.
Finally a candidate emerges......
Promising (oral) Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Emerges for COVID-19 from Veteran SARS Lab
The compound at the center of the work, EIDD-2801, comes from the lab of coronavirus veteran Ralph Baric, PhD, professor in the department of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. A world expert that has studied RNA viruses for 35 years, Baric’s team also performed much of the early work on remdesivir—Gilead’s drug that is currently being tested in multiple human clinical trials and is leading the pack of SARS-CoV-2 treatment hopefuls.
Now, the team shows that a new compound, the ribonucleoside analog ß-D-N4-hydroxycytidine has “broad spectrum antiviral activity against SARS-CoV 2, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and related zoonotic group 2b or 2c Bat-CoVs.” In addition, the compound showed increased potency against a coronavirus bearing resistance mutations to another nucleoside analog inhibitor.
EIDD-2801, the orally bioavailable NHC-prodrug, improved pulmonary function, and reduced virus titer and body weight loss in infected mice. The authors noted that “decreased MERS-CoV yields in vitro and in vivo were associated with increased transition mutation frequency in viral but not host cell RNA, supporting a mechanism of lethal mutagenesis.”
The compound, a nucleoside analogue, inhibits viral replication, acting as a mimic of naturally occurring nucleosides. It was first found to be effective against murine hepatitis virus (MHV) and MERS-CoV in November of 2019, work that was published in a Journal of Virology article titled, “Small-Molecule Antiviral ß-D- N 4-Hydroxycytidine Inhibits a Proofreading-Intact Coronavirus With a High Genetic Barrier to Resistance.”
Indeed, Baric and his colleagues are people the world could have been listening to more closely. Not even five years ago, their Nature Medicine paper described the current outbreak with eerie accuracy. The paper, “A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence,” described how the researchers examined the disease potential of a SARS-like virus, “which is currently circulating in Chinese horseshoe bat populations.” A second paper, published in PNAS in 2016, titled, “SARS-like WIV1-CoV poised for human emergence,” described efforts to evaluate emergence potential. Focusing on “SARS-like virus sequences isolated from Chinese horseshoe bats,” the results indicate “a significant threat posed by WIV1-CoV.”
Emory-discovered antiviral is poised for COVID-19 clinical trials
A small-molecule antiviral discovered by Emory University chemists could soon start human testing against COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus. That’s the plan of Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, which licensed the compound, EIDD-2801, from an Emory nonprofit.
EIDD-2801 has other promising features. Many antivirals work by introducing errors into the viral genome, but, unlike other viruses, coronaviruses can fix some mistakes. In lab experiments, EIDD-2801 “was able to overcome the coronavirus proofreading function,” Denison says.
He also notes that while remdesivir and EIDD-2801 both block RNA polymerase, they appear to do it in different ways, meaning they could be complementary.
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