I think you're right. COVID-19 is not going away soon and still there's a lot of uncertainty about the effectiveness of a vaccine. HALB started with the goal of developing a treatment against blood born diseases, like MS, PTSD and TBI and that's still their ultimate goal. Now they added a COVID19 preventative product (the nasal spray) and a rapid diagnostic test in cooperation with their academic partner ASU. Developing those products in the very near future will make it a lot easier to get funding for the clinical trials in the future.
Think about this:
"For the coronavirus, Ison says, " 'herd immunity' is seen when we have somewhere between 60% to 70% of the population having some degree of protection."
So — here's a little math — if 20% of the U.S. population ends up getting exposed to the virus and developing an infection before we have a vaccine (as is estimated to be the level of immunity in the New York City metro area right now), then we would still need an additional 40% of the population to gain protection via a vaccine.
And in order to get 40% of a population immune through vaccination — if you have a vaccine with 50% efficacy — "you're going to have to vaccinate 80% of the population," says Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease expert at Emory University. "So it's not going to happen right away."
For starters, Michael Ison says, there are logistical challenges to getting everyone vaccinated, given the mammoth undertaking of manufacturing and distributing a vaccine.
"It's going to take us months to get the entire population vaccinated if they are willing to get vaccinated," he says — which is another big "if." An NPR/PBS/Marist poll in August found that more than a third of Americans — 35% — say they won't get vaccinated when a vaccine comes available."
